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THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


ERNEST RAYMOND 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/shoutoftkingOOraym 


ie THE 
SHOUT OF THE KING 


BY,“ 


ERNEST’ RAYMOND 


Author of “Damascus Gate,” “Tell England,” etc. 





GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 








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COPYRIGHT, 1924, 
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AUTHOR’S NOTE 


I would desire to say by way of preface to this 
book that all its chapters were originally written 
to be spoken from platform or pulpit and to audi- 
ences large enough to require from the speaker a 
high degree of compression and an exceptional 
vividness of phrase. After much thought it 
seemed to me best neither to expand their matter 
nor chasten their form, lest they lose any of that 
enthusiasm and force which the contemplation of 
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to it. 

E. R. 






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CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


Tue SHout oF THE KING . 

Sons oF THE Mornino 

Tue Desire or NaTIons . 

AN EXPERIMENT 

Tue Law or Travaiu 

Gop MEETING THE SOUL . 

Tue Gopwarp THrRust 

A New Year’s Morro 

He Tuat SHoutp Come . 

CHRIST, THE YOUNG AND Happy 

REVELATION THRouGH LOVE 

Wuy Dip Curist Go Up? 

Tue Way TurovucH . 

AN Essay on REUNION 

Tue ATTACK OF THE cannes 
Man ; : 

Tue Gop or JAcos 

Tue Roya LIne 

Tue Tare or A PHRASE . 

Tue BELIeveERS 

Tue Seven SEALS 


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74 
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106 
114 


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159 
168 


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THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Stay! Means it nothing to my handicraft 
That God has chosen for His earthly throne 
No pure and lovely output of His own; 
That Fire, and Wind, and Water do not waft 
Down to our waiting eyes His kingly shape; 
But, rather, He has deigned to set His feet 
In bread, which men have wrought from garnered 
wheat, 
And wine, their human product from the grape? 


So prospers He our handicraft; and lo! 
Whether I rule a world, or plough the soil ; 
Dream symphonies, or break the crusted sod— 
Or even sing this little song—I know 
Heaven is hidden in my daily toil: 
My work shall prosper, being filled with God. 


ErNEsT RAYMOND. 


THE SHOUT OF THE 
KING 


I: THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


I 


HOPE that whenever you’ve heard the story 

of Balaam and his inability to curse the en- 
camped Israel you’ve shivered suitably with pride 
and excitement as you listened to his bewildered 
cry: “How can I curse whom God hath not 
cursed? . . . He hath not beheld iniquity in 
Jacob, neither has he seen perverseness in Israel. 
The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of 
a king is among them.” 

Balaam stood upon a high place in a mountain 
range and overlooked the plains of Moab. With 
him stood the king of Moab, pointing to the cause 
of his dismay. And Balaam, looking along the 
direction of the king’s forefinger, saw the camp 
of Israel arrayed in squares like gardens on either 
bank of an irrigating stream: he saw the lines of 


the tribal tents like rows of cedar-trees or wood- 
it 


12 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


aloes beside the waters. And, being a mystic, a 
clairvoyant, and liable to the trance-vision, he 
went off into an ecstasy, wherein all that was 
spurious and misleading was lifted like a veil 
from before his eyes, and he saw a clear vision 
of things as they were, and as they must be here- 
after. 

First, he saw the true character of the People 
of Israel—a people that for the sake of God was 
separated from the world—a people, as he says, 
that shall dwell alone and shall not be numbered 
among the nations. In other words, they have 
no abiding country, and yet the whole world is 
their wandering ground. 

Then he saw their future, and, in revealing it, 
said, as it might be: “I hear them coming, and 
their coming is triumphant. I hear the tramping 
of their feet like the tramping of the feet of con- 
querors. They are victorious, and hark! the shout 
of a king is among them.” And by “the shout 
of the king” he meant the shout of a crowd of 
people who have a king in their midst. 

Then he passed to a further vision yet, vaguer 
because further, and he said: “I see dimly who 
the king is. It is he that shall be the Star of 
Jacob and the Sceptre of Israel—he that the 
marching Israel shall bring in triumph to the 
nations. I shall see him, but not now. I shall 
behold him, but not nigh. He shall smite the 


THE SHOUT OF THE KING 13 


corners of Moab, and Israel shall do valiantly.” 

No wonder the king of Moab stamped with 
impatience and wrath and said, ‘“‘For God’s sake, 
neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.” 


II 


The interpretation of Balaam’s vision shall be 
easy for us. The king of Moab and the men 
of Moab represent Entrenched Wrong, alarmed, 
dismayed at those whose advance threatens their 
security, and (like all evil men when first they 
scent in the air the briny tang of oncoming de- 
feat) scofing and reviling. The tented Israel, 
arrayed like a people at war, is the body of true 
Christians: not, I think, a body co-extensive with 
any organised Christian communion, but the /rze 
Christians; the separated people; the people that 
shall dwell alone and not be numbered among 
the nations; the true souls; those whom God 
knows as His; those, perhaps, who have been 
called the soul of the church as distinct from 
the body of the church; those who by their active 
campaigning, or just by the reproach of their 
lives, really threaten the fortified places of Evil. 
And the king? In.a minute, we shall speak at 
length of the king. It is enough now to say that 
the true souls alone possess the king, and will 
assuredly bring him into his own. 


14 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Ill 


The reason why I am interpreting this vision 
of Balaam for you is this: I would have you, 
once and for all, decide that, if you belong to the 
true cohorts of the king, you cannot for a mo- 
ment be among those strange Christians who 
bleat and whine about the failure of their 
Church. You will never discuss with the men 
of the world how badly your war is going, and 
how you contemplate defeat. You won’t have 
moments of fraternising with the men of Moab, 
in which you tell them what a pity you think it 
is that the battle is lost. And your refraining 
from all these things won’t be just because it 
isn’t good policy; just because it’s bad for the 
morale of your own comrades, and particularly 
fine for the morale of Moab; but simply because 
it isn’t true; simply because it’s a damnable lie; 
simply because it’s one of the most successful bits 
of Moab’s propaganda, whereby he seeks to dis- 
hearten the king’s men. ‘‘Come, curse me Israel. 
Spread me disorder in their ranks, that they may 
think that truth is against them; for, verily, I 
fear their onward march.’’—‘“‘How shall I curse 
whom God hath not cursed? The Lord their 
God is with them, and the shout of a king is 
among them.” 

No, you will do the opposite: you will say to 


THE SHOUT OF THE KING 15 


the men of Moab, and to the scoffers, ‘“You poor 
peoples I have it win my /beart;to: ibe.sorry 
for you, because it’s sad to be on the losing side; 
and that’s where you are, be assured. We are 
the winning side. It’s our faith that shall over- 
come the world.” And again, your saying of this 
won't be just because it’s good policy; just be- 

cause, after a decisive battle, the generals of both 
sides invariably attend a Te Deum in thanks- 
giving for their victory; but because it happens 
to be the truth of God; because you Christians 
alone possess the king; and who shall march to 
victory without the king? 


IV. 


The king. Let us be sure we know what we 
mean by the king. 

Now the thought that you must master is this. 
An idea is the most powerful thing in the world. 
A great idea is infinitely more powerful in the 
long run than ten thousand howitzers or twenty 
million armed men. It rides the seas and crosses 
from continent to continent more surely than bat- 
tle fleets. A great idea gradually wins an empire 
over the minds of the greatest men; and it is they 
who sway the world. Soa great idea marches— 
that is the wonder of it. It marches more surely 
than the armies of Alexander, Cesar, and Na- 


16 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


poleon. And if it be truth, nothing can stop its 
march. That’s why the biggest minds among bad 
men are always dismayed when a great idea be- 
gins to march. Your sworn militarists and 
profiteers, how they scoff at the League of Na- 
tions! Say the kings of Moab: “God, or the 
devil, help me from this approaching truth! 
Come, curse me Israel!’ But those who can see 
behind the specious trappings of temporary suc- 
cess, those who can see the true trends of thought 
and the real soul of things, reply: ‘““How can I 
curse whom God hath not cursed? God is among 
them, for God camps with Truth.” 

Truth, then, marches. And Christ is the Truth 
of Man. Get that phrase right home. Christ is 
the Truth of Man. Christ is the true expression 
of Man. If.Man were true, he would be like 
Christ. Christ is the truth about Man. There- 
fore Christ is the King of Man. And I mean 
“king,” not in the sense which has been discred- 
ited in the thoughts of the world—an unnatural 
burden placed by conquest, or the caprice of a 
god, upon a subject people, but the natural king 
—a higher version, that is, of the king of the 
wolf-pack, or the king of the stag-herd. Christ 
is the King of the Pack. We are conscious of 
being our noblest when we are thinking most like 
Christ. We are conscious of being our loftiest 
when we act like Him. We all—say what we 


THE SHOUT OF THE KING 17 


will—though we try to curse Christianity— 
though we neither curse it at all nor bless it at 
all—we all know that Christ has determined for 
ever the true code of living. Christ is not only 
the Word of God, but he is also the Last Word. 
The Last Word has been uttered on the question 
of God, and on the question of Man. 

To the Christ-thought the finest minds will 
always surrender. The true souls will camp 
around it. Therefore we say, “Nothing can stop 
its march. Nothing can arrest it for any length 
of time. It may be held up for a moment. It 
may even be driven back. But such reverses can 
only be momentary, and the Christ-thought takes 
to the road again. Those who march with it 
march to certain victory, for the shout of a king 
is among them.” 


Vv 


Who, then, will help in the really gay cause 
of bringing the king into his own? There may 
be one or two of you who have been ready to 
curse Israel, and to fight against it. Well, I 
won't deal with the sin of that, but just with the 
futility of it. You cannot fight against truth. 
‘You are playing a losing game. Or a few of 
you may have been placid and indifferent, neither 
cursing them at all, nor blessing them at all. 


18 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Well, that is simply poor. That is unworthy of 
you. You can do better things than that. 
You are too noble to continue long in that. ° 
Some of you on the other hand are conscious of 
being king’s men; and if so, then shout like them 
that conquer. Maybe you will not see the king 
come into his own—of course you won’t—Truth 
marches, but it marches slowly—no, you will fall 
by the road; but you will be content to do so, for 
you will know that you have brought the king 
a little on his way, and your closing eyes will see 
him still advancing. 


II; SONS OF THE MORNING 


I 


EADING a few days ago the work of a 
classic English writer, I struck the remark- 

able sentence: ““We are sons of yesterday, not of 
the morning.” By which the writer meant that 
our yesterdays determine what we shall be; what 
we made ourselves as children we must be as 
men; the child is father to the man; the past has 
inevitably predestined our future; we cannot 
escape the fatherhood of yesterday, and there is 
no hope in the morning. We cannot say, “To- 
morrow I will begin again. I am tired of my 
character as I have formed it, and I despise much 
that I see in it. In the morning I will start 
anew.’ No, our habits are our tyrants; the 
leopard cannot change its spots; and it is fond 
nonsense to think of saying, ‘Like Venus from 
the sea, I will be born again out of the morning 
air, an untrammelled, virgin soul.” No, no, alas, 
“we are sons of yesterday, not of the morning.” 
And, as [ read that sentence, I was impressed 
with two things—the perfection of its literary 
expression, and (for the Christian) the glory of 


its untruth. Never was a sentence more beauti- 
19 


20 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


fully turned—‘“‘we are sons of yesterday, not of 
the morning’—and yet never was there a sen- 
tence more demanding the defiant denial of the 
Christian preacher. We fling it back in the face 
of its author with the words: ‘“Thank God, we 
are not sons of yesterday, but always—always 
—sons of the morning.” 


II 


For, if that sentence of George Meredith be 
true; if the leopard cannot change its spots; if 
we cannot rise superior to the tyranny of yester- 
day’s habits; then are we of all men most miser- 
able; then is life a despair; and we are playing 
a losing game. 

But it is only a half-truth. A half-truth it 2s, 
of course; and full, perhaps, of warning. I need 
not labour that. It has been taught us whenso- 
ever we have heard a sermon on the text, ““What 
men sow that shall they reap,” or on the solemn 
quotation, “Sow an action, reap a habit; sow a 
habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a 
destiny.” But who sets it up for the whole truth 
sets up a lie. It would be the whole truth but 
for a glorious intervention: it would be the whole 
truth had not something been hurled into life 
from without and deflected its natural course. 
That glorious intruder is the gospel of Christ, the 


SONS OF THE MORNING 21 


gospel of grace and power. And by reason of 
that gospel the true Christian message is the word 
of the saintly, old priest, who took a degraded 
woman by the hand, and, leading her to his door- 
way and pointing to the glow in the east and the 
morning coming over the hills, said: ‘“Every sun- 
rise, my daughter, a soul can be born again.” 


III 


“Ah,” you say, ‘if only I could believe it! 
But so often I have begun again. And always I 
have found the tyranny of yesterday too strong, 
and have dropped back into the old habits that I 
despise.” That’s what you are thinking, isn’t it? 
Well, if so, it shows that you lack the necessary 
things to start with, faith and hope. “If only I 
could believe it! If only I could think that I 
were a child of the morning! If only—”’ You 
see, you lack faith. ‘Ah, but I have tried it be- 
fore, and always failed, and I should fail again.” 
You see, you lack hope. Shall we start this time 
with faith’ and hope? 

Now, that we may have faith, and a faith that 
is not easily discouraged, let us see exactly what 
we shall expect to happen, supposing we seek at 
once the grace of the gospel. Let us not expect 
too much. Let us not expect an immediate 
miracle—a sudden and complete conversion. Let 


oe THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


us not think that on the First of April we shall 
be a completely different character from what we 
were on the Thirty-first of March. No, this is 
what we are going to do, and this is what we are 
going to expect. 

First, we are going to believe that there zs a 
power which can be had for the asking, and it is 
called grace: and that this grace is a tonic force, 
a new, invigorating source of life: and that this 
power is from without, independent of our past, 


and having no proportion to our merits—nay, the 


worse our past is, the larger, very likely, will be 
the free gift of power, for we shall need it more. 
That’s what we are going to believe, and it is 
truth; or, if it isn’t, there is no good God, and 
the sooner we die and are forgotten, the better. 
But it zs God’s fact, or the evidence of twenty 
centuries, and twenty million Christian men, 
brown and white, and old and young, and very 
wise and very simple, must be scoffed away. Be- 
lieving this, then, we are going to put ourselves 
in touch with this grace, and henceforward we 
shall daily pray for it; we shall make of our 
morning prayer a daily Pentecost, rising from 
our knees and saying with a feeling of rejuvena- 
tion and joy, “Yes, I feel I have received power 
from on high”: but we shan’t worry if somehow, 
try as we would, we couldn’t make our prayers 
other than formal and dead: we shall know that 


OO — aT 


SONS OF THE MORNING DS 


we have prayed, and that therefore something 
must happen. Then, if we are confirmed, we are 
going to come regularly to the Holy Communion, 
which is the very special way of receiving grace; 
and we shall not worry if sometimes we do not 
get any remarkable spiritual experience at that 
service, and the whole thing has seemed rather dry 
and cold, for we shall know that we have done 
as we were told and therefore something must 
have happened—it is not always that God vouch- 
safes us wonderful spiritual experiences. 

That'll be our spiritual life: a quiet, ordered, 
perfectly happy spiritual life, never ruffled, never 
panicky, always trusting. In quietness and con- 
fidence shall be our strength. And, as a result, 
what shall we expect? Not, we have said, a 
sudden metamorphosis, a complete transfiguration 
of our character—no, not that, but a silent 
revolution. ‘That is the work of grace—no noisy 
coup d’état, in which the old régime is suddenly 
and bloodily overthrown, but a gradual and easy 
revolution—a steady sweetening of our sourer 
parts; a steady softening of the hard and ungen- 
erous in us; a steady strengthening of the weak 
and vacillating; a steady upgrowth of love. It 
may be quite a while before we observe the work 
of this silent revolution. It’s silent, yousee. But 
it is working; and one day we shall awake to this 
gradual sanctification; we shall be amazed to see 


24. THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


how much farther the transformation has gone 
than we ever dared to hope; and we shall laugh 
the laugh of knowledge at such a sentence as, ““We 
are sons of yesterday, not of the morning.” We'll 
say: “I seem to have broken all connection with 
yesterday; in fact, I can see very little resem- 
blance between what I am now and what I was 
when I was a child of yesterday. Now I believe 
—I know—that it is perfectly possible to be born 
again of the morning.” 


IV 


Very well, then, we have faith—faith in grace, 
that power that is the key to the morning. We 
have hope—hope for a silent revolution. 

The conversion of St. Paul is our parable: but 
alas! in the past we have always misread it. We 
have thought of it as a sudden and complete con- 
version outside the walls of Damascus, whereas, 
if we read his story carefully and his self-revela- 
tion in his letters, we shall see that he only took 
his first step, when he fell to the ground and said: 
“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ It is 
clear to me that it was a long time before the 
silent revolution, which then began, was complete: 
before he finally overcame his self-pride, his im- 
patience, his imperious obstinacy, his haughty 
egotism. It was pretty obvious that he had by 


SONS OF THE MORNING 35 


no means conquered the old Adam, when he 
turned in wrath upon the High Priest, who had 
commanded them to smite him on the mouth, and 
said: ‘“‘“God shall smite thee, thou whited wall.” 
It was different from our Lord before the High 
Priest. “If I have done ill, testify against me; 
but if well, why smitest thou me?” Not yet had 
he reached the stature of Christ. But grace was 
working the silent revolution in him, and he had 
nearly reached his full height when he wrote: “I 
am ready to be offered.” Christ’s grace had been 
sufficient for him. ‘I was the chief of sinners, 
but by his grace J am what I am. I am the least 
of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, 
but I have wrought more abundantly than they 
all—yet not I, but the grace of God which was in 
ine.’ 

St. Paul is perhaps the prince of the sons of 
the morning, but he is only one. Peter is an- 
other, and, for that matter, the whole apostolic 
band; and many a thousand others—St. Augus- 
tine, who tells the tale anew in his “‘Confessions,”’ 
and our own St. Thomas of Canterbury—all 
leopards who changed their spots; who, scorning 
to remain sons of yesterday, were born again of 
the morning. 

See what St. Paul meant (and he ought to 
know) when he said: “For this cause I bow my 
knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 


26 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


. . . that he would grant you according to the 
tiches of his glory to be strengthened with might 
by his spirit in the inner man: that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith: that ye, being 
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to com- 
prehend with all saints what is the breadth and 
length and depth and height; and to know the 
love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Now 
unto him that is able to do exceedingly abun- 
dantly above all that we can ask or think—” 
you see, ask all that you want, all that in your 
most sanguine moments you can imagine yourself 
possessing, and there’s more for you still—‘“unto 
him be glory throughout all ages, world without 
end. Amen.” 


Ill: THE DESIRE OF NATIONS 


I 


ORE than five hundred years before Christ 

there lived in an Indian village, on the 
southern and sunnier side of the Himalayas, a 
wealthy youth who spent most of his time hunt- 
ing in the jungle or love-making in the groves. 
But he was not happy. He felt, as we all do 
sometimes, the complete failure of pleasure to 
give any final satisfaction or serenity of soul. So 
there came upon him, as there has come upon 
thousands of others, a fierce desire to seek hap- 
piness by a life of seclusion and asceticism. And 
it was while he was contemplating this great step 
that his servants approached and told him that 
his first child, a son, was born. He sighed and 
shook his head saying, “One more tie to break.” 
That night the Indian village broke into festivity 
and choral dancing to honour the birth, but the 
young father would take no part. And, when the 
merry-making had died out, and the dancing girls 
had dropped asleep on the alternating slips of 
moonlight and darkness, he arose in an agony and 
went to his wife’s chamber. ‘There she lay, the 


oil lamp lighting up the lines of her form, and 
27 


28 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


the flowers that surrounded her, and the baby on 
her arm. The husband longed to kiss both, but 
feared to wake them; and, without a word, he 
went into the moonlight and rode away. He had 
gone to think out what was wrong in the ways 
of societies and men. He had gone to seek the 
desire of all nations and peoples, which is soul- 
serenity. 

In the mountains he lived a hermit’s life; and 
so terrible were his self-inflicted penances that his 
fame echoed (we are told) all over the Ganges 
country like a great bell hung in the canopy of the 
sky. But never could he find soul-serenity. His 
rigorous asceticism and mortification left him as 
dissatisfied as the old sensuous repletion of the 
pleasurable days. And with an ill-nourished brain 
he couldn’t think. So, though it shocked his ad- 
mirers, and muffled the great bell, he decided to 
eat ordinary food like an ordinary man. For this 
apostasy his disciples deserted him, and he was 
obliged to wander alone, battling to find for him- 
self and for ungrateful men the Way—the way 
to soul-serenity: one of the many lonely figures 
that have done great honour to the story of hu- 
man thought. 

It was one day under a tree by the bank of a 
river that, with blinding suddenness, the revela- 
tion came to him. He sat there, hour upon hour, 
not heeding the passage of day and night. Then 


THE DESIRE OF NATIONS 29 


he rose up to proclaim his message to the world. 

His name was Gautama, but men called him 
the Buddha. I pray you think of him, not as the 
dark, little squatting idol of the temples, but as 
the solitary, high-souled thinker—a man like you 
and me, with the same desire for clarity of mind 
and tranquillity of soul. 

This was the revelation of Gautama, the 
Buddha. He called it the Way, the Path. Self- 
ishness, he said, is the key-word to suffering. 
With the total elimination of self goes victory 
over pain. All desires—bodily desires, worldly 
desires, even spiritual desires, such as the desire 
for conscious personal immortality—must be 
thrown off like the discarded skin of a snake. 
The soul must lose its ego, if it is to attain 
serenity. And the perfect serenity he called 
Nirvana. 


II 


_ In the same century, the sixth before Christ, on 
the northern and darker side of the Himalayas— 
far away in China—rose another great teacher, 
Lao-Tse. He is not the founder of Taoism, but 
we may call him the prophet of it. There was 
already in existence, before he spoke his word, the 
Taoism, the religion of the Tao. (Tao means the 
Way, for all religions adopt this beautiful word.) 


30 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Lao-Tse was the royal librarian in a great Chi- 
nese city, and a man who strove to lead a vir- 
tuous life in full accordance with the Tao. But 
he was dissatisfied, and decided to withdraw 
from men that he might think. He left his 
library, and walked to the gate of the city which 
stood at the entrance of a mountain pass. ‘The 
warden of the gate looked strangely at him, and, 
going: after his retreating figure, said, ‘“You are 
about to withdraw yourself from sight. I beg 
you to compose for me a book before you go.” 
So, on a sudden, even as Gautama, the Buddha, 
had done, Lao-Tse gave to the world his concep- 
tion of the real Tao, the way to serenity of soul, 
the desire of all nations. He made for the gate- 
keeper a writing. “And then,” says his Chinese 
chronicler, “he went away, and it is not known 
where he died.” 

This is the writing of Lao-Tse; or, at least, 
among much that is uncommendable, this is what 
is best in the writing of Lao-Tse. 

The way of men, he says, their works and 
their service, must be free from all selfish pur- 
pose. Their working must be without pride, and 
without assumption of ownership. Look at the 
grass, and the hedgerows, and the trees, how they 
spring up without a word spoken, and grow with- 
out a claim on their own production or any dis- 


THE DESIRE OF NATIONS ou 


play of pride. That is the most beautiful and 
practical idea of Lao-Tse: work and serve with- 
out striving and crying, without pride or jealousy 
or acquisitiveness, like the young grass. I quote 
his words: “It is the way of Tao not to act from 
any personal motive; to conduct affairs without 
feeling the trouble of them; to account the great 
as small, and the small as great; to recompense 
injury with kindness.” 

And there, at his noblest, let us leave Lao-Tse. 


Ill 


In the same sixth century before Christ— 
who can doubt that God had decided that the 
hour had come for a stirring of men’s hearts to- 
wards higher things—it was the time, mark you, 
when the Jews were purging their scriptures and 
reaching their highest ideas in the Babylonian 
captivity—it was the moment when the thrilling 
voice of the Deutero-Isaiah began to sing, ““Com- 
fort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” 
—in the same sixth century before Christ rose 
another great Chinaman, Confucius, who sought 
to find the way to individual happiness, and to 
national and civic peace. And perhaps the 
sweetest note of Confucius was his refusal to 
withdraw from mankind. “With whom should 


OZ THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


I associate,” he said, “but with suffering men?” 
and he set up a whole system of ethical and cere- 
monial rules, which were to govern the intercourse 
with his fellows of the Ideal Man—the Noble 
Man—or the Superior Man, as he called him. 
The Superior Man of Confucius is nothing like 
that conceited bully, the Superman of Nietzsche, 
but a fine, suave creature of elegant manners and 
quiet, smooth deportment. You will see the 
stamp of Confucius on the most degraded China- 
man in Limehouse to-day. 


IV 


Let us only take in mind what is loftiest in the 
teaching of these strong souls; and perhaps this 
will help us to find the real Way, the desire of 
the nations. 

Says the Buddha: “Man must sink himself and 
his petty desires into something greater.” Shall 
we phrase it more familiarly and say: “He must 
lose his life to save it” ? 

And Lao-Tse has a splendid word: ‘‘Work and 
serve without striving or crying like the young 
grass.” Shall we say: ‘“T'ake no anxious thought. 
Consider the lilies of the field’? 

And Confucius, though his contribution is the 
least spiritual of the three, still shows us the pic- 
ture of the Noble Man, who refuses to withdraw 


THE DESIRE OF NATIONS ou 


from his kind, and rather comes eating and 
drinking and going about doing good. 

In the sixth century before Christ they gave 
their message; and about the same time a chorus 
of voices began to cry elsewhere: ‘The Desire 
of all nations shall come. .. . All the nations 
shall be gathered before it... . It shall be a 
praise and honour before all the nations of the 
earth.” And on that chorus let us drop the cur- 
tain while the centuries elapse. 


Vv 


It rises again on a scene, a mounting, of ex- 
traordinary interest. We are shown nothing less 
than the marching ground of the old empires: the 
little buffer-country that joined Africa to Asia 
and Europe; and Egypt to the empires of the 
plains and hills. Down it, and through it, and 
over it, and beside it marched and counter- 
marched the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Chal- 
deans, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks and | 
the Romans. It is the very highway of the na- 
tions. 

And here, on this highway, stepping, as it 
might be, right across the path of the marchers 
and the countermarchers, comes a figure, pro- 
claiming that God is the Father of all men; that 
all men are brothers; that there are no such things 


34 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


& 

as nations, nor high breeds nor low breeds, nor 
bond nor free, nor Hebrew nor Greek, nor Jew 
nor Gentile; that there is but one Kingdom and 
it is the Kingdom of God; and that in it every 
man must sink himself in the greater good of his 
fellows, and must lose his life to save it; and 
every man must serve without anxiety or worry 
because he trusts his heavenly Father, and with- 
out desire for personal gain because he loves his 
fellow-man; and that in the kingdom there shall 
be no pride, nor precedence, for the great shall 
be the servants of the small, and the strong the 
ministers of the weak; and there shall be no re- 
prisals, for men shall speak well of those that 
curse them and pray for those that use them de- 
spitefully. 

Thus speaks the voice of Him Who steps across 
the highway. Where His strong-souled predeces- 
sors were right, He proclaims afresh their mes- 
sage; but where they were one-sided, He is 
rounded and whole; where they were local for 
their own people and transitory for their age, He 
is universal for all nations and eternal for all 
times; and, above everything, where they are 
silent as to God, He is full and satisfying. I 
have not the least doubt that, once and finally, 
with that Voice on the highway, the Desire of 
the Nations came. I have not the least doubt 
that that voice was the voice of the Son of God. 


THE DESIRE OF NATIONS 35 


VI 


The Desire of Nations has come. The way to 
soul-serenity has been found and _ proclaimed. 
And yet men still suffer from unquiet souls, and 
live and die in pain; and the nations march and 
countermarch. Let us for once in our lives be 
straight with ourselves and answer why this 
should be. We know. We know it is because, 
both as individuals and nations, we give only lip- 
service to that Voice. We have never fairly 
faced it, nor traced it to its logical conclusions, 
for we have never dared to. We have been 
afraid, knowing in our heart of hearts that it is 
the most revolutionary voice that ever disturbed 
human thought. It would have us give up too 
much—too much. It would have us adventure 
too great a happiness. No, let us not trace it too 
far. For then there can be no real property, be- 
cause all property belongs to the Kingdom and 
not to the individual, and perhaps that idea leads 
to Communism, dread thought; or, if not, it leads 
to the upsetting idea that what we have is not 
ours, but lent; and that every extra bit we have 
increases our terrible accountability—oh, let us 
not think too deeply about it, for we love our 
sense of proprietorship. There can be no pre- 
cedence—but, oh! we love our amour propre, and 
our salutations in the public squares, and our 


36 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


prominent seats in the places of meeting; we love 
to snub those who forget our dignity. And, hush, 
there can be no patriotism of the popular sort, 
no locus stand? for the “unrepentant English- 
man” who would have his country overlord the 
foreign world; there can be none of that blood- 
stained patriotism, for there are no frontier lines 
in the Kingdom, and the only legitimate pride 
in one’s country would be pride that it should 
lead the world, not in armies and navies and 
colonies, but in the housing and happiness of its — 
people, and the education of its children. But, 
oh! we love our patriotism and our imperialism 
and our navalism—let us not think too deeply; 
let us call him a fanatic who has dared to think 
too far. 

Wait, another thought. I wonder if there can 
really be any sport of the kind that shoots the 
birds whose Father watches them fall to the 
ground. But, oh, again! let us not think about 
it; we are a sporting people—let us not try to 
picture our Lord shooting a bird, for that would 
be thinking too far; and it is terrifying to think 
too far. In a word, we daren’t think what it 
means to sink ourselves for the love of others; 
and so we miss the way to soul-serenity and 
happiness. You don’t want to think it out, 
do you? Nor do I. Though my head cries out, 
“It is right, every bit of it right,’ and my heart 


THE DESIRE OF NATIONS ae 


cries out, “It is right, every bit of it right,” my 
will droops and faints; and so does yours; and 
together we think of the young man who turned 
away sorrowfully, for he had great possessions. 
We find an escape by calling Buddha and Lao- 
Tse and Confucius dreamers and visionaries; but 
we daren’t call Christ that, for deep down in our 
hearts we believe Him to be God. And, if He 
be that, how dare we think? Take Him away. 
Take Him away. Crucify Him. Crucify Him. 


IV: AN EXPERIMENT 


I 


ET us try an experiment. Let us read the 
story of the man Jesus’ temptation as if we 
were reading it for the first time. Let us imagine 
we have never seen any of those medieval pic- 
tures of a devil, horned and tailed and leering at — 
Jesus’ elbow on a mountain-top. Then, to say, 
“He was tempted of the devil” will call up no 
absurd picture of the appearance of a bodily devil, 
but will mean just the same as when we say, “‘I 
was sorely tempted to do it. . . . I had to fight 
an almost overpowering temptation.” The trou- 
ble is, you see, that we will confuse the pious 
crudities of medieval artists with the revelation 
itself. 


II 


The first point is this. There must have been 
a day when a little circle of friends, some twelve 
or thirteen of them, had become rather intimate 
in their heart-to-heart talking, telling deep secrets 
of the past; and the leader of that little circle 
began, while the eyes of the others, I’m sure, be- 


came wide, luminous, and listening, to unbosom 
38 


AN EXPERIMENT 39 


a story of how he had had to fight a powerful 
temptation. For it is certain that the only person 
who could have told to the Apostles the story of 
the temptation was Jesus himself. There was no 
one else there. And it is only the tempted who 
can speak of what happened in his soul. It’s a 
pleasing thought. We do not speak of our temp- 
tations save to those whom we call, not servants, 
but very intimate friends. 


Il 


This, I think, was the story he told to his 
friends. There came down upon him at his bap- 
tism an almost frightening consciousness of 
power. ‘This is my beloved son.” He. fully 
understood then what his power was. And you 
cannot awake to a consciousness of your power 
without facing the question, “How am I to use 
it?” and being tempted to use it for wealth or 
‘fame or popularity; or, in more deeply spiritual 
souls, to use it in ways that are hardly evil but 
a little less than divine. Jesus was terribly 
tempted. And he went away into solitude, as 
we do when we are in the grip of a strong temp- 
tation. It is difficult to fight a spiritual contest 
in company. He went away to look at his life, 
and to consider on what lines he should build it 
——as many another keen young man has done. 


40 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


“There’s nothing you can’t do, if you be the Son 
of God—if you be the Son of God... . How 
can I best achieve that to which I know I am 
called? I must worry it out now at the start. 
Surely it would be very effective, and there would 
be nothing wrong in—’ You see, it was a 
temptation to do things for which, no doubt, 
much could be said, but which the noblest 
in him seemed to reject. He must be alone to 
think it out. And he didn’t want to eat. We 
don’t want to eat halfway through a spiritual con- | 
test. All we want to do is to be left alone, till 
we know that we are victors, and can say, ‘““That’s 
over. [ve won.” 


IV 


And it was a long while before this man won; 
before he abandoned, one after another, the 
schemes that appeared tainted with wrong. Forty 
days, I am inclined to think, is only the Jewish 
conventional method of saying, “a long, long 
time’; somewhat as we say, ‘‘a month of Sun- 
days.” It would take a long time for any of 
us to get the temptation well under, if we really 
joined issue with it, instead of trifling with it 
all through our lives: for it is a temptation that 
we all suffer from in lower degrees-—one that I 


AN EXPERIMENT 41 


certainly suffer from, and every public man has 
always suffered from—the temptation to win 
applause by a flashy effect; the temptation to 
win the popular vote by a lowering of one’s 
highest ideals; more satanic still, the temptation 
to win a vast public by an appeal to their lower 
passions, their cupidity or their prurience; in a 
word, the temptation to play down to the crowd. 
(The name Bottomley immediately occurs to me 
in this connection. ) 

And it was a long while before this young man 
drove it back. Indeed, it was never thereafter 
absent from his life. Three words of St. Luke 
tell us that. “The devil departed from him for 
a season.’ It makes Jesus sound quite human 
like ourselves, doesn’t it? But a little imagina- 
tion could have discovered it without the three 
words of St. Luke. Surely it was attacking him 
when the people demanded a sign from heaven. 
It attacked him severely enough to try his temper, 
when Peter, after declaring his conviction that he 
was the Son of God, refused to believe that he 
would forswear everything, and, if necessary, die. 
At that moment it was so powerful as to re-create 
the whole scene in the wilderness, and to make 
Jesus say, “Get thee behind me—thou savourest 
of the old trouble, the desire to please men rather 
than God.’ And, whenever the disciples, the 


42 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


only friends he had left, showed that they ex- 
pected great material gains for being loyal to him, 
it must have attacked him with a tremendous de- 
sire to minister to their cupidity. Certainly its 
last echo is heard at the end of his life, “If thou 
be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”’ 
And he beat it. And he died, saying something 
like, ““That’s over.. I’ve won.’ 


V 


Often through the long spiritual contest in the 
wilderness, while the victory was still unwon, the 
pangs of hunger asserted themselves. And the 
devil couched low in the pangs. Jesus was 
tempted to throw up his struggle for a little, and 
to cut with it all, and to eat. Besides he was 
alone, and, if he was the Son of God with a 
miracle-working power, he could turn these stones 
into loaves, and it would injure nobody. We can 
understand the feeling. ‘‘Ah, well. Let’s leave 
it undecided for a little. Let’s go and have some- 
thing to eat.” But Jesus saw that, if the issue 
remained indecisive while he temporarily with- 
drew, and if he used the very power that was in 
question ere he had decided on its use, he would 
have sustained an initial defeat. 


AN EXPERIMENT 43 


VI 


Of course it must have early occurred to him 
that he could easily endorse all his claims by 
some such flashy effect as a hurling of himself 
from the Temple. But probably this crude form 
of the temptation was quickly beaten. He would 
see at once that that was not the true way to 
win the souls of men, even though a passage in 
Scripture might seem to warrant it. Their faith 
would then be based on terror, not love. Indeed, 
it wouldn’t be faith at all; it would be just cold, 
intellectual conviction. 

It is the third form of the temptation that is 
the direst—the mass attack, after mere raids. It 
runs like this: “If I do a little less than my 
highest ideals, I can win the popular vote. But, 
if I pursue uncompromisingly the highest of all; 
if I preach only perfection, utter self-abnegation, 
and total surrender, I shall provoke hostility and 
earn unpopularity for the message of God. But, 
if I compromise a little with the worldliness of 
men, I can win all the kingdoms of the world. 
Would it not be wise? Would not a compromise 
be good statesmanship? Fancy, all the kingdoms 
of the world as the empire of God!’ But no. 
The greatest souls of this world have always seen 
that to pursue a little less than their highest ideals 
is to worship Satan. To follow the brightest 


44. THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


light that is in them is to worship God. And 
Him only will they serve. 


VII 


In conducting this experiment, it may appear 
that I have spoken of our Lord too much as if 
he were a common man; and, in answer to this, 
{ would point out that the whole temptation 
which I have been analysing depends for its point 
and force on the certainty in Jesus’ mind that 
he was the Son of God, and possessed of a 
miracle-working power. The story of the Temp- 
tation is thus a heavy argument for the divinity 
of Christ. 


Vill 


The Russian novelist, Dostoievsky, says: ‘““The 
Roman Church is Christ yielding to the third 
temptation.” This remarkable sentence expresses 
the truth, which I firmly believe, that, when Pope 
Hildebrand dreamed his rather noble dream of 
the Holy Roman Empire, and yielded to it, he 
succumbed where his Master conquered. How 
far our own communion has yielded too, I ex- 
press no judgment. I desire only to provoke your 
thought. I think it is fair to say that Mohammed 
compromised with the sensuality of men, and so 


AN EXPERIMENT 45 


won the Arab kingdoms of the world. And that 
Napoleon was tempted of the devil on the same 
lines and fell. And Kaiser Wilhelm—he too 
was dazzled by that vision of the kingdoms of 
the world, and called it Mittel-Europa. 

_ But to drop to less imperial figures. We are 
' all of us subject to the lower degrees of this 
temptation. A mother who tries to win the love 
of her children by indulgence and spoiling; a 
schoolmaster who is “out for popularity” at the 
expense of discipline; an author who bids for a 
wide public by work that he feels to be false and 
yet to have a commercial value—sensationalism, 
or just dirt; a preacher who consciously uses vul- 
garity and clap-trap to crowd his church: all fail 
where their Master told them of victory. 

And all ultimately fail: the weak mother, the 
popularity-mongering schoolmaster, the money- 
making but ephemeral author, the cheap but un- 
spiritual preacher. For God alone, and not 
Satan, though he gratify you with temporary 
success, can guide to final victory. 


Ix 


“And, when it was all over, angels came and 
ministered to him.” 

I said just now that there was no visible devil 
in the Temptation. Perhaps I presumed too far. 


46 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Perhaps to greater sanctity than ours, there is 
given a greater clairvoyance, a power to see the 
invisible spirits of good and evil; and our Lord 
did see something. But it doesn’t matter. All 
that matters is to understand that the experience 
was exactly the same as our own. So, likewise, 
the angels coming and ministering to him was 
the same experience as we know after temptation, 
when we rise from our knees, conquerors, saying: 
“That’s over. DTve won.” We feel an elation 
and joy; and perhaps—who can say—had we the 
unsullied eyes of our Lord, we should see at such 
a moment angels round about us. 


V: THE LAW OF TRAVAIL 


I 


T seems a law for men and nations that only 

out of agony shall good things come to birth. 
It is obviously true of that good thing, a man- 
child; it can only enter this world through an 
avenue and gateway of pain. And history shows 
it strangely true of such good things as Liberty 
and Equitable Government; they emerge only 
from the strife and agony of nations. And our 
private spiritual experience tells us it is not less 
true of some of our virtues—courage, perse- 
verance, patience, hope, sympathy; they are nec- 
essarily born in our pain. 

Of all this I speak here because the thought 
comes packed with consolation. Are you think- 
ing of the troubles that torment your own soul? 
The thought will lend to that pain a more gra- 
cious countenance. Are you thinking of the 
troubles that rack the state? The thought will 
teach you, perhaps, not to deplore but to rev- 
ereneemtheml sy. It) will ‘train.’ your’ lips: tovsay, 
“These distresses are not ends but beginnings; 
they are not death-pangs but birth-throes; and 


birth-throes are things to honour. Let us wait, 
} 47 


48 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


excited with hope, to see what good thing shall 
be born of this.” 

And then, when the age shall have been deliv- 
ered of its child, you will live under that other 
law, which always attends the Law of Travail— 
that rainbow law which says: ‘“The sufferers will 
remember no more the anguish for joy that a 
man is born into the world.” 


II 


Let us glance at the history of nations. I 
might speak to you of the French Revolution, 
and remind you that France, in that prolonged 
travail, brought forth her gifts at last, so that 
the whole world thanks her, and dates a new and 
grander epoch from the close of that noisy night. 
I might speak to you of the Civil War in 
America, or the Stuart and Cromwellian wars in 
England, but I have only time to examine in de- 
tail the century-long travail of nations that seems 
to have been required before the man-child, Jesus 
of Nazareth, could be born into the world. 

It required the martyrdom of the Hebrew 
Race. 

It required their oppression, those sons of 
Israel, in Egypt, that they might develop an in- 
tense race-consciousness; it required their forty 
years’ discipline in the wilderness that they 


THE LAW OF TRAVAIL 49 


might issue therefrom a compact and law-bound 
nation; it required their subjection to the tyranny 
of the old empires, Syria, Assyria, and Babylon, 
that they might be thrown more and more upon 
God, and arrive at length at their idea of Mes- 
siah; it required the catastrophe of the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem under Nebuchadrezzar that 
they might be purged and purified, and their re- 
ligion made a fitter vessel for the germ of the 
Carpenter’s creed. Ah, if only those poor He- 
brews, being drawn into exile and thinking that 
it was the end of all things, could have seen far 
enough, they would have seen us thanking them 
for their anguish, and rejoicing that a man-child 
was born into the world. 

But there was another nation brought to bed 
that Christ might be born. It is certain that the 
Christ-idea, the Incarnate Logos, could not have 
won the intellectual world of the ancients, if the 
Greeks had not carried into the cities of the 
Mediterranean their mystical and philosophical 
thought, and their love and pursuit of abstract 
truth. Christ is encased in Greek thought. That 
may not be very clear to you who are untrained 
in metaphysics and theology, but, believe me, it 
is true: and it gives us the idea that the birth 
of Christ involved the agony of mind which 
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and a thousand others, 
suffered in their struggle after truth; and, more, 


50 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


that it involved the bloody battles of Marathon 
and Salamis which determined that the Persian 
should go and the Greek should stay. Ah, if only 
the mourning mothers of Athens could have seen 
far enough, and known on what business their 
boys were sent! 

And thirdly, the Roman, or Latin, Empire was 
a necessary foundation for the world-wide church 
of Christ; and therefore I refuse to consider it 
straining the idea too far, if I say that, in a sense, 
every Roman soldier that died on the sands of © 
Africa, or in the snows of the Alps, or in the fields 
of our own Kent, suffered birth-throes for Christ. 

Yes, the birth of Jesus Christ was written in 
the blood of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the 
Latins. 


III 


So take comfort. These are heroic days, and 
I for one am proud to be alive in them. Eng- 
land, having spilt her blood the world over, is 
now being tormented internally, as are all her 
sisters of Europe, but something good is strug- 
gling to the birth. You may see it, or you may 
not, but never mind; only identify yourself with 
the purpose of God, and then you will be happily 
sure that some one, somewhere, somewhen will 
remember not the anguish for joy that Man, 


THE LAW OF TRAVAIL 5} 


better and nobler, is born into the world. I am 
certain, whatever cynics may say about man 
being as bloodthirsty a savage as ever, that, on 
the contrary, he is ever being born again, through 
trouble after trouble, world-agony after world- 
agony; and each time he emerges a loftier crea- 
ture. In this sense, ‘“Blessed is the illness of na- 
tions for it goes to the making of Man.” 


IV 


But some of you have your own personal trou- 
ble and can spare but little time for considering 
the corporate sickness. Well, the Law of Travail 
has its comfort for you. Let me ask you: is it 
not true that heroism can only come through the 
door of pain? If you can brace yourself to say: 
“Here is trouble, but I am not going to be beaten 
to the ground by it; I shall remain standing; I 
may flinch and shudder, but it shall never force 
me to my knee’; then, though scoffers may call 
these “heroics,’”’ you will emerge from the ordeal 
aman of greater courage, stronger will-power, and 
stouter resistance; and, as the revelation of these 
newly acquired qualities breaks upon you, you 
will remember no more the anguish for joy that 
a hero is born into the world. 

And may I give you another idea, that perhaps 
will appeal to many of you, as it certainly does 


42 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


tome? All of you are artists in a greater or less 
degree—that is, you love music or painting or 
poetry or sculpture. Some of you are ambitious 
visionaries and hope to excel in one of these arts; 
others of you desire no more than to understand 
and appreciate them, and to drink your fill of 
their pleasures. Now, all great art—be it great 
music or great poetry or great painting—is two 
things: it is the outward medium (wood- and 
brass- and string-sounds in music; words in 
poetry; colours in painting), and it is the inward | 
thing, the emotional content. The emotional 
content is produced out of the artist’s experience 
of courage, hope, aspiration, renunciation—all of 
which, one minute’s reflection will show you, are 
born of pain. Therefore it follows that not until 
you have known pain can you have anything but 
an academic idea of these emotions, the stuff of 
art. Not until you have known the threat of pain 
can you have anything but a guess-work idea of 
what courage is; not until you have known the 
grip of pain can you have anything but a guess- 
work idea of what hope is. So it is out of pain 
that the artist is born, whether it is the greater 
artist who creates beauty from the depths of his 
experience, or the lesser artist who responds to 
that beauty with all his nature. 


THE LAW OF TRAVAIL $3 


Vv 


There is one other little thought lurking in 
my mind as I contemplate the Law of Travail; 
and it seems to demand expression, though I 
hardly know whether it is worth bringing to your 
view. It is the travail of the Christian priest that 
his message may somewhere come to birth. Will 
you at times consider the mental struggle and 
strain through which your priests pass when they 

wonder how best to say God’s word; how to avoid 
begging God’s question; how not to spoil His case 
by poor advocacy; how not to vitiate His simple 
message with over-elaboration or vulgar rhetoric; 
and how, now and then, to medicine to morbid 
souls? It is a very great spiritual strain; and you 
must think only with gentleness of those in whom 
it sometimes (though so comparatively seldom) 
produces total spiritual collapse. You see, we 
travail and travail, and very rarely do we see 
any fruit of our labours. Only sometimes, here 
and there, as if to keep us going a little longer, 
God vouchsafes us an example of a soul uplifted 
by our spoken word. Then it is we remember 
no more the anguish for joy that a man is born 
into the world. 


VI: GOD MEETING THE SOUL 


I 


T is the gift of the poet to be able to com- 

press into the smallest compass of words— 
and those words preferably the tiniest and sim-— 
plest of monosyllables—a thought of immeasur- 
able depth. And I suppose the sublimity of the 
poet’s resulting line or stanza—its jewel-like 
character—will largely depend on its very small- 
ness and the intense compression of the meaning. 
The fewer the words and the smaller their size, 
the more wonderful will be the triumph of the 
verse as it is finally turned and polished and pre- 
sented to us. I know no better illustration of this 
highly compressed art than a single stanza of 
Alice Meynell. Do you know it? It’s just this. 
Taking our Lord’s words, “I am the way,” she 
writes these four lines: 


“Thou art the Way; 
Hadst thou been nothing but the goal, 
I cannot say 


If thou hadst ever met my soul.” 
54 


GOD MEETING THE SOUL 55 


II 


And in that little verse lies the whole argu- 
ment for the coming of Christ. We are all 
agreed that God is our ultimate goal, but how 
are we to reach that goal, unless some one come 
from there to meet us. It is not enough that 
somebody of our own world, greater-souled than 
ourselves, should go in front and lead us, for 
though such a person might lead us quite a long 
way, he must inevitably lose us, sooner or later, 
in the Impenetrable. No, some one must come 
from over there, to whom nothing is impene- 
trable; and the greatest of all great thoughts 
would be if that Someone were God Himself. 
And why not? Why should God be content to 
be nothing but the goal? 

Personally, I do not see that there is any choice 
between God the Unknowable, and the God who 
sent Jesus Christ to meet the soul. Choose for 
yourselves which is the more reasonable and 
likely. I have long ago chosen. Often I have 
argued it to myself like this: 

The God whose mind is so obviously at work 
in the organisation of this mathematically 
ordered universe seems very practical. ‘There’s 
something very practical about the way the rain 
is sent to water the ground, and the sun to ripen 
the corn; or the way the passage of the earth 


56 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


about the sun produces the seasons, so that there 
is variety in our lives, the absence of which 
would make for deadness, monotony and melan- 
choly; or the earth’s habit of spinning on its axis, 
which gives us day and night, a time for work 
and a time for recuperation. ‘There’s something 
so practical about it all that I find it impossible 
to think that the greatest and noblest need of 
which we are conscious, soul-hunger, has been left 
uncatered for by God. If He remains unknow- 
able to the soul, this God who has done all other | 
things well breaks down at the point that matters 
most. There must be a revelation. There must 
be something sent for the soul, equivalent to the 
sun and the rain for the seed of the earth. There 
must be something of consolation and comfort for 
the pain in the world—else is God more heartless 
than the poorest human parent, which is unthink- 
able: and that something must be Christ. 

It is Christ or nothing. There is no other fac- 
tor in history that enters into the remotest com- 
petition with Christ; there is no other figure 
whom we can contemplate for a moment as a 
possible alternative. That kindly old sensual- 
ist, Mohammed; that high-souled but visionary 
Gautama Buddha; that suave teacher of cere- 
monial and courtesy, Confucius—none of these 
can find chamber-room in our western souls. Nor, 
observe, do any of them claim either with their 


GOD MEETING THE SOUL ai; 


own voice or the voice of their followers to be 
God, meeting the soul. They only claim to be 
men like ourselves, with a clearer vision of how 
to struggle on in the rather hopeless task of find- 
ing peace and a rest. Christ is the only figure 
who ever dared claim to be God meeting the soul. 
Listen: 

‘‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only- 
begotten son which is in the bosom of the Father, 
he hath declared him; 

“Philip saith, Show us the Father, and it suf- 
ficeth us. Jesus saith, Have I been so long with 
you, and hast thou not known me, Philip? He 
that hath seen me hath: seen the Father.” 

“No man knoweth the Father save the Son, 
and He to whom the Son will reveal him;” 

“No man cometh to the Father but by me;” 

“I am the way.” 


Byes: 


“Thou art the Way; 

Hadst thou been nothing but the goal, 
I cannot say 

If thou hadst ever met my soul.” 


Ill 


I want to make it quite clear that, if Christ 
be God meeting the soul, then there is a solution 


58 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


of mystery, and satisfaction and rest: and, if He 
be not, then there is nothing but everlasting 
doubt, repulse, dissatisfaction, and hunger. So 
that it is easier to believe that God did send 
Christ than that He didn’t. 

For (follow me carefully) if we are to estab- 
lish any relation between ourselves and God, it 
is certain that that relation must be one of love 
for Him, and understanding of His character and 
requirements. 

We'll take first the question of our loving 
God. We know that, however feeble and un- 
satisfactory we may be, our power of love is the 
most uplifting and purifying faculty in us. We 
feel nobler when we are loving some one than at 
any other tite; and in the light of love all things 
that are little and paltry and shady die away. So 
we can have no doubt that in our relation with 
God this noblest faculty ought to play. But how 
on earth are we to love God without Christ? We 
can’t love an unknowable God. We can’t love 
an abstract conception—a sort of etherealised 
amalgam of infinities. We can’t close upon it to 
love it. You must be able to embrace with your 
mind what you love. ‘“Hadst thou been nothing 
but the goal, my soul had never closed upon 
thee.” No, our frail minds need a man to love, 
a human being, a some one whom we can picture, 
a creature of emotions (for, if one thing is more 


GOD MEETING THE SOUL 59 


certain than another, it is that we can only love 
a creature of emotions). Now, if Christ be the 
answer to this difficulty, at once love can play. 
In Christ God seems to say: “If you can’t under- 
stand me, this is my beloved son, hear him. He 
shall tell you of me. He is the Infinite God 
given the outline and colour and warmth of a 
human being: God made visible, tangible, con- 
ceivable. He is God expressed in terms that you 
can understand. In terms of man—if God were 
man, this is what he would be hke—-nay, now 
God is man, and this is what he ts like. Only 
love him whom I have sent, and you shall love 
me in him.” 

Oh, it must be true! The idea of God being 
incarnated for us is so beautiful that it must be 
true. There are some things so beautiful that it 
is inconceivable that they are not true. Can man 
have thought a more beautiful thought than 
God? I don’t know how far this argument is 
valid with you, but it is extraordinarily valid 
with me; and must surely be so with all those 
who hold the faith of Keats: 


“Beauty ts Truth, Truth Beauty. That és all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” 


And the idea is so final that it must be true. It 
is impossible to think of man ever improving on 


60 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


the idea of God coming as a man to meet man’s 
soul. Here he has reached the topmost pinnacle 
of beauty of thought. Just try for a moment to 
think of any improvement in the simple idea that 
God came as a man to meet man’s soul. You 
will see that it is the final idea. It’s the final 
idea that man can compass; and I believe that 
it’s the final message of God. 


IV 


’ 

We see, then, that love of God is only ren- 
dered possible by Christ coming out of the Im- 
penetrable, dwindling as he comes, till he is of a 
size for us to comprehend him, and finally incar- 
nating God for us. But, besides love, we agreed 
that there must be understanding of God’s char- 
acter and requirements. What, for instance, is 
his attitude towards sin and repentance? What 
is his mercy? What is his justice? Without 
Christ there is no answer, and never will be any 
answer, to these questions. But with Christ God 
answers them—not with a code of laws or a 
tabulated system of punishments and rewards, 
but, just as we do when we try to make an idea 
clear to little children—with a story, where he 
just shows us what God would do if he walked 
about as a man. ‘That’s what the Gospel story 
means. Whatsoever relation justice bears to 


GOD MEETING THE SOUL 61 


mercy in the character of Christ is the relation it 
bears in the character of God. The sins that 
make Christ angry are the sins that anger God. 
The attitudes of soul that draw the compassion 
of Christ are the attitudes that stir the pity of 
God; and it is good to remember that to all peo- 
ple in pain, seemingly without regard to their 
goodness, he is very tender indeed. 

What, then, do you seek to know of God’s 
character? His dealing with your sins? Look 
at Christ and study his attitude towards sinners. 
Only turn from them toward God, and, while 
you are yet a terrible way off, he will run like a 
father to meet you. It’s the old story, on which 
the whole of this chapter is based, that God is 
not content to be the goal, but comes to meet the 
soul. Ah, yes, but what about dreadful sin, 
flagrant violations of God’s law? Look at Christ 
again with the robber, the adulteress, and the 
profiteer Zaccheus. “Neither do I condemn thee: 
go and sin no more.” ‘Thou shalt be with me.” 
“T will sup with thee.” Is there nothing, then, 
that God is angry with? Oh, yes, He, since 
Christ interprets Him, can be very angry with all 
hypocrisy and humbug and cant, and with all 
lovelessness that leaves the beggar at the gate, the 
hungry without food, the naked unclothed, and 
the sick unvisited; and with any one who causes 
a little child to stumble. 


62 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Vv 


You see, then, how the argument runs. 

We must choose either God the Unknowable, 
or the God who sent a revelation. ‘That God 
should remain unknowable, we can’t think, as it 
would make him more heartless than a human 
parent, and would be inconsistent with the evi- 
dence of his bounty and practicalness in nature. 
If He has sent a revelation, it is surely Christ, 
for there is none else; and, when we come to think. 
it out, Christ is the form we should expect the 
revelation to take. If there must be a mediator, 
to be perfect (and God only deals in perfections ) 
he must be both God and Man. Accepting Christ, 
we find that we have, first, a God whom we can 
picture and love, and, secondly, an acted answer 
to every question that we can ask as to the char- 
acter of our God. Wonderful! Wonderful! 
The Word was made flesh that it might be intel- 
ligible and dwelt among us. Thank God for it; 
for 


“Had He been nothing but the goal.... 
I cannot say 
If He had ever met the soul.” 


VII: THE GODWARD THRUST 


AVING dealt with God meeting the soul, 

I propose to consider now what I shall call, 
“the upward reach of earth to God’; or, better 
still, if we may coin our own phrase, “the God- 
ward thrust of earth.” 

And in the arguments that follow understand 
that I have in mind the attack of the apostles 
of Evolution and Materialism upon the divinity 
of Christ. J seek to show that, if their whole 
system of purely material evolution were proven 
true, it would only, to my thinking, increase the 
certainty of Christ, and deepen and beautify the 
mystery of the Gospel: whereof let us now speak 
boldly, as we ought to speak. 

In order, then, to carry the war into the 
enemy’s country, and to defeat their conclusions 
by drawing our own conclusions from their argu- 
ments, let us assume as true their whole position: 
namely, that, though there is a God, He is remote 
from earth; that our earth is a spontaneous gen- 
eration, and has, of its own power, by means of 
some thrusting force within itself, after ages of 
travail and labour and evolution, from the mo- 


ment when it was flung as a flaming mass from 
63 


64 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


the sun, reached its present state of highly com- 
plicated life. 

Granted that this is so: then you and [ are 
earth—eruptions of earth. So indeed we are. I 
want you to get very clearly into your minds the 
idea of your unity with earth. You and I and 
the walls about you and the seat on which you 
are sitting are eruptions of earth. Everything 
that you can see at this moment is a manifesta- 
tion of earth. You say, “This is nothing new. 
I know all about that. ‘Dust I am, and to dust 
shall [ return.’”’ No, it’s nothing new that you 
should know it. What would be new would be 
if you could feel it. There’s a difference between 
knowing an idea for a truth, and feeling it for 
a truth. And, if I am to succeed in leaving with 
you the tremendous conception of what I have 
called ‘‘the Godward thrust of earth,” it is of 
first importance that you really feel intensely 
your identity in composition with the stuff of 
trees and grass and chalk and lime and ponds 
and seas. 

Perhaps, in order to bring home to you that 
feeling, I may be allowed to tell you how once, 
and for the first time, it seemed to burst upon 
me as a spiritual experience. 

I was lying idly on a Cornish headland, look- 
ing out to sea. Round about me was the thick, 
crisp heather; and, here and there, large dense 


THE GODWARD THRUST 65 


patches of bracken which now and then stirred, 
as a rabbit scurried beneath the fronds. Gradu- 
ally, to the exclusion of other sounds, I became 
conscious, as one becomes conscious of the ticking 
of a clock, of the unceasing murmur of the sea, 
as it came billowing towards the land; and the 
monotonous noise of its eternal repulse on the 
beach below. It was that moment that there 
came down upon me a sense (and it was a thrill- 
ing sense) of my kinship with earth and the 
waters. I seemed to know suddenly that the 
bracken, the heather, and the sea were the same 
stuff as myself; that the eternal, unconscious, un- 
willed beating of the sea was a more elementary 
form of the monotonous, unwilled beating of my 
heart; and that the rhythmic motion of the 
waters was the rhythmic motion of the blood in 
my veins. I felt completely one with earth: the 
throb of my heart, and the pulse of my blood 
seemed one with the beat of the sea; and all the 
texture of my body the stuff of restless earth: 
more still, the very mental fabric with which I 
was thinking these thoughts was only a livelier 
version of the moving bracken and the beating 
sea. 

Now, will you strive also for one minute to 
feel that you are the product of some spontaneous 
urge in Earth which has forced it to express itself 
as you. Get the meaning of that sentence. 


66 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Earth, after ages and ages of thrusting, has ex- 
pressed itself, among other ways, as you. Hold 
on to that idea for a moment—don’t lose it, or 
you will lose the glorious idea that we are going 
to draw from it. 

The earth, as its final achievement, has ex- 
pressed itself as you. And you are two things: 
you are conscious, and you are articulate. Now, 
do you not seem to see the earth struggling 
through eons and eons of time to become con- 
scious—to produce for itself a mind, wherein it 
could become conscious; and, having found con- 
sciousness, to find a voice? Do you mark the long, 
tameless plan of earth; the plan that has stirred 
and fretted it through the countless ages of evolu- 
tion; the plan to swell to consciousness and voice 
at last? And the driving force, the thrusting 
force, that has at last achieved its end, is what 
I have a fancy to call “the Godward thrust.” At 
last this pent-up, surging thought has built its 
birthplace in the mind of man. When man be- 
came conscious, earth became conscious too; and 
was so far nearer the fulfilment of that duty, as 
yet nameless, for which it had been thrusting to- 
wards consciousness. One is tempted to imagine 
a given moment when man, and with him the 
earth, first awoke to the possession of his con- 
sciousness. Let us for a moment leave it in that 


THE GODWARD THRUST 67 


possession, and consider its struggle to find a 
voice. 

There seems something like an abortive effort 
to find articulate voice in the song of the birds, 
the bark of the dog, and the roar of the lion. 
But manifestly its finest consciousness will shape 
for it its finest voice; and so it is through the lips 
of man that finally the earth becomes articulate. 
But why should it want to become articulate? 
Why should it want to make a machine for 
shaping and twisting the outer air into sounds 
or words? Is it this Godward thrust, the eternal 
swell of it, the refusal of it to be imprisoned or 
inarticulate? First, thought had shaped a con- 
sciousness for itself in the mind of man; and, 
after that, a means of escape in the voice of 
man; and thus it escapes along the wind. 

Clearer and clearer there brightens before us 
the majestic idea that the earth has been strug- 
gling through all its ages to express something; 
and I am going to suggest that the only pos- 
sible thing it can be striving to express is wor- 
ship. Wherever we find man in the lowest forms 
of consciousness, we find him struggling to ex- 
press the worship of God. There is in him an 
urge of which he is unconscious, and it is the 
Godward thrust. The thrust has achieved its 
purpose. Through man’s lips it has wrought an 


68 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


upward shaft for issuing to God. And, before 
we leave this idea, remember that you are man. 
You are thus (with your kind) the sole spokes- 
man for earth, the sole means of sounding its voice 
beyond the sky. Then fail it not. Vent for earth 
its age-long, bursting cry: “To God, my builder, 
praise.” 

And I wonder, as I sweep through these remote 
and rarefied thoughts, striving to find a safe 
alighting place, whether Christ is not the crown- 
ing triumph of the Godward thrust of earth, the 
perfect consummation, the supreme spokesman. 
We are accustomed to hear Him referred to as 
the gift and message of God to earth. I am won- 
dering now if He is not the crowning gift and 
message of earth to God. 


VIII: A NEW YEAR’S MOTTO 


I 


HERE’S no doubt, I suppose, that the best- 
beloved of all the stories told by our Lord 

is the story of the Prodigal Son. And not simply 
because its hero is one of the most popular types 
in fiction, the young man who goes wrong, and 
then makes good; nor because the story of a fa- 
ther’s love and unqualified forgiveness is always 
sure of a great public, but because it is so full in 
the telling of little human touches and gracious 
phrases. There is of course the matchless sen- 
tence, on which I have often dwelt: “And when 
he was yet a great way off, his father saw him’; 
wherein lies the certainty that his father had been 
waiting and watching with undiminished faith 
that his boy’s better nature would one day bring 
him over the sky-line. He must have strained 
his eyes at that figure a long way off! One is 
irresistibly reminded of Mr. Peggotty. ‘Little 
Emily will come again; and, if you meet her, and 
she hesitates to return, tell her my unchanged 
love is with my darling child, and I forgive her.” 
There is the sentence: ‘““He ran to meet him.” 
Let me not profane with another word the heart- 


breaking picture of the old man running. There 
69 


70 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


is the remarkable refusal of the father to listen 
to the son’s self-blame. Have you ever noticed 
it? The son says: ‘‘Oh, father, Pve been as bad 
as possible. J’ve insulted God, I think, and hurt 
you; and I reckon I’m simply not fit to be a son 
of yours. Well, ’'m ready to eat my humble 
pie. Make me a servant, if you like.” And the 
father doesn’t even answer him. Not only is 
there no word of reproach, but there are no such 
uncomfortable remarks as: “Say no more about 
It: eee Well vtry) tonrorect. ua oe VV creates 
of us perfect.” He only turns round to the 
servants and says: “Bring out the best clothes 
we've got, and put them on him, and put my 
ring on his finger, and kill the finest calf we’ve 
got.” 

But I think the most beautiful of these 
touches is one that has probably never struck you 
at all. I am going to make out of it a New 
Year's motto. It is the sentence in which our 
Lord describes the young man’s recovery—his 
turning from what is bad to what is good—with 
the words: “And when he came to himself—” 


Il 


“Came to himself.” Think what our Lord’s 
choice of those words to describe repentance 
means. It means that we are told from the lips 


A NEW YEAR’S MOTTO 71 


of the Great Authority that our real selves are 
good; and that we are only our real selves when 
we are at our best. To be good is simply to be 
ourselves. 

In the face of this sentence of our Lord’s, all of 
us can say with perfect truth: “I am good. All 
my dreadful sin is just my failure to be myself. 
It’s just error.’ Error is the perfect word, for 
it means a wandering away. My sin is just 
error; it’s all a mistake, a blundering, a misplay- 
ing of a tune that is in itself beautiful, because 
God wrote it. 

Let us grip the idea. Jesus looks upon the 
greatest sinner of us all, and sees that he is good. 
The sentence that tells how God, after creating 
the world, overlooked his handiwork and saw that 
it was good and the sentence in which our Lord 
says, “And when he came to himself,” are much 
the same, for they reveal the same character. 


Til 


New Year’s Day. It is a time for unbounded 
faith and hope. Take them from your Lord’s 
lips. You yourself are good, and all you have 
to do is to come to yourself. 

Haven’t you felt the truth of it sometimes, the 
truth of your essential goodness, if only you could 
get quit of your mistakes? Perhaps you have 


42 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


felt it some rare day of early summer, when you 
have been alone among the trees on a carpet of 
bluebells, and have let your eyes wander to the 
hedgerows white with may or massed with lilac. 
There has been a great silence—a silence that 
strikes like a blow—and then gradually you learn 
that it is not silence at all, for, though you have 
only just noticed it, there have been birds singing 
in the distance all the time. You are right away 
from the world and such things as covetousness 
and jealousy and hatred: you are just yourself; - 
and, tell me truthfully, do you feel anything but 
good ? 


IV 


Here’s your New Year motto, then: “Come to 
yourself, for your self is good and beautiful and 
true.’ Don’t mind making a New Year’s reso- 
lution. Have your joke about it by all means— 
we do love our annual joke about New Year 
resolutions—but make the resolution just the 
same. Of all the wicked old lies that have done 
harm in the world, one of the wickedest is that 
which says: ‘““The way to hell is paved with good 
resolutions.” No, the proverb should run: ‘“The 
way to heaven is paved with broken ones.” For, 
if you persist right up to the end in making them, 
you may stumble and backslide a good deal, but 
you ll get there in the morning. 


A NEW YEAR’S MOTTO 13 


Come to yourself, then, for your self is good 
and beautiful and true. And the first thing that 
will happen after you come to yourself will be 
that you will begin to arise to something higher. 
When our young hero came to himself he said, 
“J will arise.’ And the next thing that you will 
notice will be that you will begin to live. 
Whereas, before, you were sated and wearied 
with the husks of life, and drifting and lost, now 
you will be full of vigorous life, the blood cours- 
ing merrily in your veins. ‘‘For this my son was 
dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is 
found.” 

And don’t hesitate about coming to yourself be- 
cause you think: “Well, even if I do turn again, 
[ can never hope to be the man I might have 
been, if I had never sinned. I have wasted my 
strength, and injured my will, and fouled my 
imagination. I can only be at best a poor edition 
of what I might have been.” Don’t believe it. 
There’s nothing that you cannot hope to be. 
Remember the son in our story thought that he 
could never hope to be a son again, but must ever 
be only a hired servant. But his father refused 
to listen to him and said: ‘‘Bring hither the best 
robe and put it on him, and put shoes on his feet, 
and a ring on his finger. There is nothing of 
which he is not worthy and nothing of which he 
is not capable.” 


IX: HE THAT SHOULD COME 


I 


OHN the Baptist in a moment of hesitating 
] faith asked our Lord to show his credentials. 
And that’s what half-doubting critics have been 
doing ever since. “Art thou he that should come, 
or do we look for another?” ; 

“He that should come.’”’? Why should we ex- 
pect that anybody should come from God to us? 
What reason is there for supposing that God must 
make some revelation to men. Why, if we were 
to decide that Jesus was not he that should come, 
should we feel entitled to look for another? 

Well, there are many reasons why; and perhaps 
we saw the best one, when we were discussing the 
necessity of God meeting the soul. It lies in the 
thoughts that you are thinking now, in your de- 
sire for knowledge of God, in the way your intel- 
lect at this moment is playing round the figure 
of Christ. The fact that Man blunderingly cries 
out for and aspires towards God is the greatest 
argument that God must send something in an- 
swer. If we believe that God is love (and every- 
thing must start from that), then we cannot con- 


ceive of Him leaving us to our sin and our pain, 
74 


HE THAT SHOULD COME 75 


and turning a heartless, deaf ear on our aspira- 
tions. Even an earthly father could not see his 
child sick and crying to him without providing 
a remedy. He could not see his boy drowning 
and calling for help, without stretching an arm 
to his assistance. 


II 


Well, then, O Christ, art shou he that should 
come, or do we look for another? ‘That’s the 
case we're going to try. We are going to examine 
Christ’s claim to be he that should come. 

We have treated it along some lines already. 
Now we will marshal a new battalion of argu- 
ments. We'll wander up and down history, re- 
cruiting. 

And the first thing to notice is the phenomenon 
in history that there has always been one nation 
perfectly persuaded that it should be privileged 
to bring him that should come into the world. 
We are fond in these days of talking about race- 
consciousness to match the race-consciousness of 
the Hebrews. Shall we sift their extraordinary 
idea? 

In their folk-lore we find the idea glimmering 
in the legend of the Garden of Eden, where they 
would have us believe that God said that the seed 
of woman should bruise the serpent’s head. This 


76 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


is very vague, and our evidence would indeed be 
thin if we had to build much on this; but it at 
least makes the point that the entrance of sin and 
pain into the world means inevitably the entrance 
of a gospel. 

Next, ages after, the idea glimmers again in the 
breast of a man whom we see crossing an Eastern 
river, with his wife and his camels and his asses, 
and a considerable following of people. He may 
be deluded, or he may not, but he is making this 
move because he is convinced that he must cut 
with the idolatry and polytheism of his own peo- 
ple, and venture into a new land, where he will 
establish a nation that will worship God on dif- 
ferent lines, and be entrusted to bring to the 
world some wonderful blessing. Abraham, of 
course, who, though childless, and ‘‘as good as 
dead,’ had become possessed, somewhere in the 
quiet of the Arabian desert, with the idea that in 
his seed, generations hence, all the nations of the 
world should be somehow blest. And, because he 
had the courage to cross the river Euphrates with , 
his idea under his arm, so to speak, he became 
the first great Pilgrim Father. He ventured into 
the Blue for the sake of his idea and became 
the father of the great monotheistic religions of 
the world, Judaism, Christianity, and Moham- 
medanism. 

This old sheik had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael; 


HE THAT SHOULD COME ae 


and Ishmael was cast out and became the father 
of the Ishmaelites. Isaac, the favoured son, 
stayed at home, and became the inheritor of the 
great idea. I am not concerned with the rival 
claims of Isaac and Ishmael. I only want you 
to notice the extraordinary vitalising power of 
the great tradition handed from Abraham to 
Isaac, and from Isaac to his descendants. ‘The 
Ishmaelites, where are they now? But the chil- 
dren of Isaac, where are they not? 

Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob, of whom 
Esau was cast out and became the father of the 
Edomites. Once again, I am not concerned with 
the quarrel between Esau and Jacob. The folk- 
lore of the Hebrews is naturally very one-sided 
and pro-Jacob; but I only want you to notice 
again the vitalising power of the great tradition. 
Where are the Edomites to-day? 

Jacob had twelve sons, who became the twelve 
tribes: and now we have to pass over hundreds 
of years to find out which of them was to inherit 
the great tradition. We have to pass over the 
oppression in Egypt, the wandering in the wil- 
derness, the ups and downs of their history in 
Canaan, until we come to the sudden destruction 
and disappearance of all the tribes, save one— 
Judah. Once more, the eleven tribes, where are 
they now® ‘They are become the lost sheep of 
the House of Israel, and certain amusing societies 


78 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


are still looking for them. But the men of Judah, 
or Jews, who so marked as they? 

With the selection of Judah, a change comes 
over the great idea. It is no longer a vague, in- 
definite promise of some blessing for the world. 
It has ceased to be vapoury and has solidified 
into the form of a man. Men speak of “the 
Lion of Judah,” “Messiah,” ‘Him that should 
come.” 

Our next step in studying the path of the great 
idea, which we may now call the Messianic Hope, 
is to get a rough picture of the political condi- 
tion of the state of Judah. Modern criticism 
has thrown a revealing light on this. We may 
say that Judah was torn between three conflict- 
ing political parties, who loved Judah and the 
great idea, as much as they disliked one another. 
There was the Priestly party, which later be- 
came all-powerful. These people conceived of 
the theocratic state of Judah chiefly as a church, 
with a highly elaborated system of sacrifices, 
altars, and victims. They proclaimed that Mes- 
siah should be a priest for ever after the order 
of Melchizedek. 

The second party to notice was the Nationalist, 
Imperialist, or Militarist party—the Jingoes, if 
you like—who wanted to colour the map red with 
Judaic conquest and rebuild the old empire of 
David and Solomon. They were all out for ter- 


HE THAT SHOULD COME 79 


ritorial aggrandisement and proclaimed that 
Messiah should be a warrior king. 

The third party was the great Prophetical 
party, with its roots in Elijah and the schools of 
the prophets. These were the idealist, visionary, 
unpopular party; but it is remarkable that their 
wonderful succession of party-leaders—Elijah, 
Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah—were among the glories 
of the ancient world. The Prophetical party 
was anti-priestly and anti-nationalist. They 
hated all materialism—whether it was the ma- 
terialism and formalism of the Priestly party, or 
the materialism and ambition for territorial ag- 
grandisement of the National party. In religion, 
may I say, they were the Quakers of the day; in 
foreign policy, the little Englanders. To the 
Priestly party they cried: ‘““God does not need the 
sacrifice of bulls and goats, when his are the cattle 
on a thousand hills. He will have mercy, not 
sacrifice.’ To the Nationalist and Miuilitarist 
party they cried: ‘““Why are you flirting with 
Assyria, or trusting in Egypt, that broken reed? 
Your traffic should be in spiritual things: and 
Israel is greatest when smallest.” Jeremiah is 
typical of them; and nothing can disguise the fact 
that he was a conscientious objector in the fine 
fight which the little nation of Judah put up 
against the hordes of Nebuchadrezzar. The 
prophetical message is always too rarefied for its 


80 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


age. The prophets, of course, believed that Mes- 
siah would be a prophet like themselves. 

So there you have the reasons why he that 
should come was foretold as prophet, priest, and 
king. 

But at least twice the idea of Messiah seemed 
to flare up to Heaven till it was high above all 
local party jealousies. Once was when Isaiah 
reached the dazzling thought that the coming of 
Messiah would be some kind of catastrophic ap- 
pearance of Jehovah himself. ‘‘A virgin shall 
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name 
Immanuel. . . . Unto us a child is born, and 
his name shall be called Counsellor, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’’ And the 
other was when, in a flash of genius, the Deutero- 
Isaiah saw that Messiah, like all too great souls, 
must suffer and serve and be rejected, “bruised 
for our iniquities, wounded for our transgres- 
sions, by whose stripes we are healed.” 

Prophet, priest, king, Jehovah himself, suffer- 
ing servant—O Jesus, art thou he that should 
come, or do we look for another? 

Prophet? ‘Thou wast in the direct succession 
of the prophets, thy voice ringing with their old 
Woes and Blessings, and proclaiming mercy be- 
fore sacrifice. Priest? With a touch of thy 
hand thou didst spiritualise the whole priestly 
system, fulfilling its every idea, by becoming 


HE THAT SHOULD COME Sl 


thyself the priest and victim at the altar of 
atonement. King? Who of the boldest of the 
Hebrew nationalists ever foresaw the world-wide 
empire that thou claimest? Jehovah himself? 
What other figure in history ever dared to make 
thy claims? Suffering servant? The Son of 
Man must suffer many things, and be spat upon, 
and crucified. . . . It is done. 


Ill 


But all this argument is taken from Bibli- 
cal history. We must now look at world his- 
tory. 

It has often been pointed out that, at the mo- 
ment of the birth of Jesus, the stage of the world 
seemed set for some great central event. 

The Romans had conquered the known world 
and reduced it to order: their roads were laid and 
made, and, radiating from Rome, were ready for 
the feet of the messengers. The pax Romana 
brooded over the earth. As Milton says: 


“No war or battle’s sound 
Was heard the world around; 
The zdle spear and shield were high up hung: 
The hooked chariot stood 
Unstained with hostile blood; 
The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng: 


82 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


And kings sat still with awful eye 
As if they surely knew their sovereign lord 
was by.” 


Then the culture of the Greeks had spread over 
the Roman Empire; and the Greek colonists had 
taken with them their language, which became a 
sort of universal language, and was destined to 
be the vehicle in which the good news should be 
brought to the world. Also they had familiarised 
the great centres of learning with their Hellen- 
istic philosophy, which later so illumined the 
gospel. 

Lastly, the Jews of the Dispersion, as they 
were called, had been scattered over the world 
that they might lay in every city that foundation 
of Judaism, on which alone Christianity can be 
built. 

Everything was ready. It was as though the 
hour had struck, and the heavens parted, and 
Gabriel, spreading his wings, sank to earth at the 
feet of the maid of Nazareth. O child of that 
annunciation, art thou he that should come, or 
do we look for another? 


IV 


But, when all is said and done, it is strange 
that our Lord, apparently, prefers not to present 


HE THAT SHOULD COME 83 


these overwhelming facts as his credentials. 
When John asked him: “Art thou he that should 
come, or do we look for another?’ he sent back 
the message: ‘““The blind receive their sight, the 
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, 
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the 
gospel preached to them: and blessed is he who 
shall not be offended in me.” 

In other words, to those who accept the gospel, 
it works. And that seems the credential on 
which our Lord would take his stand. It works. 
Those who were blind to spiritual things sud- 
denly receive their sight; those who were but 
lame, halting souls march like heroes; those who 
were hideous with the leprosy of sin become white 
as little children; those who were dead in their 
sorrow are raised to hope and life again. It 
works. It is the one solace, the one remedy, the 
one hope. You agnostic, look at that dying man 
in yonder hospital bed, with his wife and chil- 
dren weeping around. Take the message of your 
absentee God to these people. Hurry up, man, 
the time is-short. What? No message of any 
sort? No solace? No hope? Then, in God’s 
name, stand on one side, and let me take them 
Christ. Christ works. 

Art thou he that should come, or do we look 
for another? Jesus left the answer to John. 
And every soul that comes into the world has to 


84. THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


decide on his answer. If Christ was he that 
should come, the issues for you and for me are 
enormous. ‘To say the least, it is important busi- 
ness for us. Was he he that should come? Let 
no man lightly answer, “No.” Meanwhile the 
church throughout the world exists to proclaim 
the answer, “Yes.” 


X: CHRIST, THE YOUNG AND 
HAR EY 


I 


HERE is a continent of unsearchable 
riches which we call Christ; and it is the 
province of the Church to be for ever discovering 
and opening up fresh tracts of wealth-producing 
territory in that continent, and pouring out its 
new wealth for the enrichment, the healing, and 
the beautifying of the world. Now, there are 
many old rich veins which have been working 
since the beginning, and will continue to pour 
out their inexhaustible treasures till the end. 
Such a one is the old vein of Christ as a man of 
pain. What wealth of consolation that thought 
of Christ as a man of pain has meant to the sor- 
rowing portion of the world, it is impossible to 
measure. I would go so far as to say that the 
appeal of Christ in the universal language of suf- 
fering is well-nigh irresistible. 


“Well'I know thy trouble, 
O my servant true; 
Lhou art very weary; 


I was weary too.’ 
85 


86 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


But that rich vein, I say, is already working, and 
working well. I don’t propose to talk about it 
now. 

Rather, I would submit that it may be the 
province of our generation to discover a new tract 
of wealth-producing territory in the continent 
which is Christ, and to open up a new vein of 
riches for the thought of the world. 

This new vein is—not the pain of Christ—but 
the youth, the great physical strength, the glow- 
ing health, and the unconquerable happiness of 
Christ. 

I believe it to be necessary to open up that 
vein of thought right away, because the conven- 
tional picture which we have in our minds of 
Christ is so inadequate. It satisfies the sad; it 
satisfies the old and tired (and well it is that it 
should be so, and that there is such a sure mes- 
sage for those who have earned the right to be 
old and tired: “Come unto me, all ye that are 
weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you 
rest’ )—-yes, it satisfies the sad and old, but— 
here’s the point—the world, as a whole, is, I am 
convinced, a thing unconquerably young and 
possessed of an unconquerable will to be happy. 
I am sure that we are all of us more often happy 
than miserable; only we hardly notice the long 
times when we are happy, because they fly along 
so merrily; whereas the shorter periods of pain 


CHRIST, THE YOUNG AND HAPPY 87 


are heavily marked. For my own part, I am sat- 
isfied that I have had ten times more fun out 
of life than misery; and if so be there’s a lot 
of trouble in store for me, well, it’s got a big 
distance to catch up. I wouldn’t gamble much 
on its chances of overtaking the joy of life. 

So it seems to me that the conventional picture 
of Christ—the Christ with a face set in sorrow, 
and lined and heavily bearded, and striking our 
children as middle-aged or even very old—fails 
the world. 

Now, that sounds a blasphemy, but it is not 
so; because, remember, the painted portrait of 
Christ is no part of the Christian revelation. It 
might have pleased God to use men’s artistry with 
the paint-brush and the pencil to give us a revela- 
tion of His Christ, but he has chosen to use only 
their spoken and written word. 

May I lead you along some new lines of 
thought that appear to bring us to a very dif- 
ferent picture of Christ? 

To begin with: it is sin that has produced in 
men’s bodies ugliness and deformation and weak- 
ness, so that it is impossible to imagine what the 
flawless man, the original type in the mind of 
God, which we may style Adam, was like: at any 
rate, God saw that it was good, and that must 
mean that it was pretty perfect. But, if Christ 
came into the world as the second illustration of 


88 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


God’s mind—the second Adam, inheriting no 
ante-natal sin, and being marred by no post- 
natal sin—he must have brought into the world 
the natural beauty of unspoiled man. I suggest 
that the sublimest example of Greek statuary, 
representing young manhood, falls short of the 
exquisite proportions of Christ’s manly figure. 

Then again: Christ was always young. He 
never knew what it was to leave the period of 
youth. He died young, and the manhood which 
he took up to the right hand of the Father was. 
set eternally young. Now, the physical glory of 
youth is its great bodily strength and its glowing 
health; and the mental glory of youth is certainly 
its unconquerable will to be happy. I therefore 
submit to you Christ as of glorious physical 
strength, and of an unconquerable will to be 
happy. I see him as a big man and brown; 
ruddy with the open air and the Eastern sun; his 
face lit with laughter and the glow of those who 
believe in life. 

Unfortunately, I have no time now to show 
you, as I could, how the written word bears all 
this out: I have no time to give you examples 
of Christ’s rippling humour, and the extraor- 
dinary vigour of his utterance and deeds. 

Just let me give you two points which will at 
least bring home to you how one-sided has hitherto 
been our imagining of Christ. First, when He 


CHRIST, THE YOUNG AND HAPPY 89 


left the scene of the last supper and walked to- 
wards the garden of Gethsemane, I know that 
he said: ‘““My soul is exceeding sorrowful’—I 
know all that—but just think of a text that 
occurs a few verses before: ‘And, when they had 
sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of 
Olives.” Do you know what that hymn was? 
It was almost certainly the psalm of the Great 
Hallel, which, in those days, concluded the Pass- 
over; and it closed on the 118th psalm. Here, 


then, are a few verses from the last song of 
Christ : 


“Oh, give thanks unto the Lord; for he ts good: 
For his mercy endureth for ever... . 


The Lord zs on my stde; I will not fear 
What can man do unto me? ... 


The Lord ts my strength and song; 
And he ts become my salvation... . 


I shall not die, but live, 
And declare the works of the Lord... . 


Open to me the gates of righteousness: 
I will go into them, I will give thanks unto 
therEora nn oo 


This ts the day which the Lord hath made: 
We will rejoice and be glad init... . 


90 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Oh, give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: 
For his mercy endureth for ever.” 


Have you ever thought of it before that Christ 
went to his agony, singing? 

The other idea that occurs to me arises from 
Christ’s self-chosen title, Son of Man. By 
“Man” he means us. Christ calls himself our 
son: and, in that sense, He is younger than we: 
and we follow our young son, who leads us to 
our salvation, singing. 


II 


Having drawn for ourselves this picture of 
“Christ, the young and happy,” I think the best 
text that we can write below the picture, to ex- 
press the essence of it all, will be the words: 


“Thy statutes have been my songs in the house 
of my pilgrimage,” 


because, if the “house of my pilgrimage” means 
the body, what better motto can we have to 
describe Christ, or any other well-ordered and 
happy youth? It’s the word “songs” that ap- 
peals to me. For see, if the pilgrims sing on their 
march, it swings the miles merrily behind them; 
it is a sure sign that they know their way, for 


CHRIST, THE YOUNG AND HAPPY 91 


men don’t sing if they’re confused; and it en- 
courages the others, helping to bring the lame and 
broken-winded home. 

So, according to this new conception, if you 
are old and tired or in any way weary and worn, 
you may come to Christ and draw from him his 
youth and his happiness. And I am not speak- 
ing in metaphor; for I would have you literally 
rejuvenated, and filled with the unconquerable 
will to be happy. 

And this thought can be carried further. If 
those interpreters are right, who think that the 
words “house of my pilgrimage” are a reference 
to the body, in which we tabernacle during our 
journey through the world, may it not suggest 
to us that our bodies can be filled with Christ, 
the young and happy, so that they sing with 
physical health, the heart beating rhythmically 
and the nerves bracing themselves up like well- 
tuned strings. Christ in us should mean physical 
health. That’s a cheering thought; and, in these 
days of psychotherapeutics, it should not be dif- 
ficult to hold. 

I offer you, then, Christ as certainly the true 
fount of happiness, and probably a sure fount 
of physical health. And I believe that only by 
taking him into the body of your pilgrimage will 
you ensure that you come into harbour, singing. 


XI: REVELATION THROUGH 
LOVE 


I 


N spite of all we are told, we wé//] go on in- 
terpreting the question: ““What shall I do to 
inherit eternal life?’ as: ““What shall I do down » 
here in this world, that, after my death, I may 
live for ever up above the bright blue sky?” 
Try as we will, we find it almost impossible to 
throw off our childhood’s idea of eternal life as 
something that begins beyond the grave. But, if 
we give efernal léfe the definition Christ gave it: 
“This is eternal life, to know God and Jesus 
Christ whom he has sent’; if we remember that 
eternal life begins here and now—from the mo- 
ment we begin to be spiritualised by unity with 
God through Christ—and that the grave is of no 
more importance to it than our bed will be to- 
night; if we understand that eternal life is a 
thing in the houses on the Old Kent Road or on 
the Brighton Front, and that some of us are 
already eternally alive and some of us are not; 
we shall find this question: ““What shall I do to 


become eternally alive?” and the answer: ‘“Thou 
92 


REVELATION THROUGH LOVE 93 


shalt love ... for eternal life is to know 
Christ,” illuminated with a flood of new think- 
ing. 


Eternal life can be summed up as knowing 
Christ. But the word ‘‘know” must have its full 
meaning. It’s not enough to know about Christ, 
we must know him. We know all about King 
George V, and have an affection for his name, 
but we don’t know him. And the attitude of 
many of us towards Christ can be delightfully 
described in the couplet that was really intended 
for the angels: 


“They know not him as Saviour, 
But worship him as king.” 


Our few intimate friends, on the other hand, we 
do know: and, when we give to the word ‘‘know” 
this full and lovely meaning, we begin to under- 
stand the question and answer: “What shall I 
do to inherit eternal life; or, as you put it, to 
know Christ?” “The first and great command- 
ment is, “Thou shalt love . . .2. And the second 
is like unto it, “Thou shalt love. . .’” 


II 


So true. So true. Do any of you find a dif- 
ficulty in believing fully in Christ, and in really 


94 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


knowing him? You do, do you not? Well, 
never mind. Don’t worry about trying to find a 
firmer faith through books of Christian evidences 
and apologetics; put them back on their shelves 
for a while and go out into the world and set 
about loving it. And the more you develop a 
great heart that loves all things, the more you 
will get a gradual revelation of what love is, 
and the more you will wonder if Christ isn’t, 
after all, the truth and explanation of everything. 

Aim at a wide, general love. Love little chil- 
dren: and not only those that are clean and 
proper children, but those also that are jammy 
and dirty, and those that are undersized, ill-fed 
and repellent. Love youth: don’t want to put it 
down for its conceit, and egotism, and intoler- 
ance, but love it for its infinite promise, its effer- 
vescing optimism, and its dreams; love it, even 
with purple socks and tilted hat and plastered 
hair. Love men and women of your own age; 
and love not only the loveable, but the proud, 
the haughty, the self-seeking, the petty, and the 
mean. Love old people; and not only those upon 
whose placid and gentle faces no one could look 
without loving them, but those also whom ad- 
versity has made querulous and trying. And, 
when you begin to love like that, you’ll find the 
mist clearing between you and Christ. To love 
is the revelation of Christ. 


REVELATION THROUGH LOVE 95 


Ill 


But that isn’t all. Love isn’t love, if it stops 
at a sentimental good-will. See to it that it 
gives. For a simple example: next time there’s 
a flag-day for the Waifs and Strays, or the Life- 
boat, or the Hospitals, don’t say: “Curse these 
flag-days. I’m sick to death of them. It’s per- 
fectly dreadful to be pestered at every street 
corner,’ but remember, some one’s got to house 
the waifs; some one’s got to float the lifeboat; 
some one’s got to pay for the hospitals. And I 
promise you that every time you give generously 
—not for the credit of it, but out of your love, 
and because you must—you'll get a momentary 
revelation of Christ; you'll have a transient 
glimpse of the truth that God must have given 
Christ. God loved so that he gave . . . Com- 
passion, you will suddenly see, is the first-born 
son of Love, and yet the same thing. Which is 
possibly another way of saying: “I believe in 
Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of the Father, 
and of one substance with the Father.” 

Christ’s words always meant far more than 
their surface meaning. That’s why he frequently 
added: ‘“‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” 
The majority of us hear but the surface mean- 
ing. For it is only those that love who hear deep 
calling to deep. To them he seems to say: Not 


96 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


by a sign from Heaven will you get your revela~ 
tion of me; nor by learned books, for I am hid 
from the wise and prudent; but go out and give 
food to the hungry man, and you will suddenly 
see me; clothe that half-naked child, and you'll 
know me; show kindness and hospitality to that 
poor stranger, and you'll learn that I am the 
truth; be slow to condemn this degraded prisoner 
—try visiting him instead—and you will under- 
stand that God is Love, and Love must give com- 
passion, and that I am God’s compassion incar- 
nate. In other words, you will know God, and 
Jesus Christ whom he has sent. 

Have you sounded now the question and an- 
swer: “‘What shall I do to know Christ?’ 
“Thou shalt love.” 


IV 


But, beware, the converse is equally true. 
What shall I do to lose Christ? ‘Thou shalt 
begin to hate. So surely as you begin to feel 
dislike, contempt, and vindictiveness towards 
your fellowmen; so surely as you begin to shut 
off your compassion for them, and to beat back 
your inclination to give; so surely as you begin 
to love only yourself, and to be impatient with 
little children, bitter with youth, inconsiderate 
and irritable with the old; so surely as you begin 


REVELATION THROUGH LOVE 97 


to do these things, will the mist come and a cloud 
take Christ out of your sight. 

The only revelation of Christ is through love. 
When you have learned to love, you will have 
ears to hear him, and eyes to see. But if you 
forget to love, or if you have never learned, you 
will never really hear his meaning, nor see the 
lines of his face. For whosoever hath love, to 
him shall be given, and he shall have abundance. 
But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken 
away, even that he hath. Therefore spoke Jesus 
in parables, that those who have ears to hear may 
hear; while the others, alas!—seeing, they see 
not; and hearing, they hear not, neither do they 
understand. 


XII: WHY DID CHRIST GO UP? 


I 


¢ 


; O to my brothers, and say I go up.” That 
was the message which Christ entrusted 

to a prostitute for conveyance to the world. 
Now, will you bear with me, while I try to 
lead you through one or two difficult thoughts. 
I want to get to the heart of the meaning of the 
words, “I go up.” We know that our Lord, 
when he ascended, went off the earth, and disap- 
peared into a cloud. But why did he do that? 
We're not so unsophisticated as to believe that 
any one could ascend, pierce the blue sky as 
though it were some solid thing, and enter the 
palace of Heaven. Space is infinite; and Heaven 
is where God is, and God is everywhere. Why, 

then, did Jesus go visibly wp off the earth? 
This is the answer. He did it because he had 
to express to his disciples a spiritual thing by 
a visible act. It was a sacramental proceeding: 
and all Christ’s dealings were sacramental; that 
is to say he always acted out spiritual things by 
outward and visible forms. It wasn’t necessary, 


when he healed a leper, that he should stretch 
98 


WHY DID CHRIST GO UP? 99 


forth his hand and touch the man; he could have 
healed him by an effort of the will, as he often 
did heal over great distances; but the touch of 
his hand was a sacrament—an expression by a 
visible act that he was invisibly healing the man. 
It wasn’t necessary that the stone of the Easter 
sepulchre should be rolled away. Christ’s Resur- 
rection body, which no longer conformed to the 
laws of this world and was able, as we are told, 
to come through closed doors, could have left 
the sealed sepulchre. But the stone was rolled 
away because God always gives us the outward 
and visible sign. 

But to go further back than that. From the 
minute God, as it were, committed himself to the 
Incarnation, he committed himself to the sacra- 
mental principle—the expression of spiritual 
things in outward, visible, tangible and audible 
forms. The Incarnation is the expression of God 
in such a form. As we saw before, it is as though 
God said: ‘You dear people, I understand—who 
so well?—how impossible it is for you to grasp 
my infinite and incomprehensible self. And my 
Heaven, too, belongs to a world of which you 
have no experience, and, therefore, no terms to 
express. I must translate these things into easy 
terms for you.” We can’t understand these 
things, any more than a deaf man can understand 
a Beethoven symphony, unless it is translated into 


100 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


some medium which he can experience. And God 
had to be translated into the terms of man. 

So came Christ, the first sacrament. Christ is 
God the spiritual, encased in an outward form. 
The first sacrament was laid by a peasant girl in 
the straw of a manger. Christ is God in a sacra- 
ment. Love Christ and you are loving the in- 
visible God. ‘Trust in Christ, and you are trust- 
ing in the invisible God. Learn the character of 
Christ and you learn the character of the invisible 
God. Where Christ is merciful, God is merciful. 
Where Christ is stern, God is stern. Where 
mercy outweighs wrath in Christ, it outweighs 
wrath in God. 


II 


So God is committed to doing everything in 
the sacramental way, and the religion that he 
left behind after his ascension is sacramental too. 
If God wants to wash away all sin from a soul, 
and to start it pure and lovely on its course as 
a Christian, it is not necessary to wash it with 
the waters of Baptism—God can cleanse without 
an outward form—but in his mercy and conde- 
scension he he does it for us through an outward 
and visible form, which is a perfect picture or 
parable of what is happening spiritually; and a 
picture, moreover, which the simplest child can 


WHY DID CHRIST GO UP? 101 


understand, and the deepest philosopher appre- 
ciate. Hence the sacrament of Baptism. 

If God wants to come right inside our souls 
to nourish and strengthen them, it is not necessary 
to come into our bodies through bread and wine 
—God can enter us without any outward form— 
but in his mercy and condescension he does it for 
us through an outward and visible form, which is 
a perfect picture or parable of what is happening 
spiritually; and a picture, moreover, which the 
simplest child can understand, and the deepest 
philosopher appreciate. Hence the sacrament of 
Holy Communion. 

Have you ever thought how the parables of 
the gospel and the sacraments of the church are 
obviously the work of the same hand? 


Il 


Everything in Christianity, then—its Christ- 
story and its present ordinances—is sacramental, 
And I fancy that the only religion which will 
become universal and survive will be a sacra- 
mental religion. Why? Because it corresponds 
to life as we know it. All life is sacramental. 
We ourselves are sacraments. 

Let me explain. We are conscious of being 
thinking creatures. ‘Thought is an impalpable, 
spiritual thing. And life is thought. When con- 


102 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


scious thought stops, conscious life stops. And 
yet, although we are these spiritual beings, we 
are all expressed in bodies and no other way. 
The eyes with which we glance our thoughts are 
visible things. The words with which I am now 
clothing my invisible thoughts are outward 
things; visible, if you are reading them; audible, 
if you are listening to them—a matter of the 
tongue and the tangible air. 

If you are intensely amused, your amusement 
is an invisible, spiritual something, but you ex- | 
press it by a strange, visible, alteration in the 
face, and a strange noise called laughter. A 
laugh is a sacrament. If you are sad, your sad- 
ness is an invisible spiritual thing, but you ex- 
press it by a tear. A tearis asacrament. If you 
are enthusiastic, when your side is winning at 
football, your enthusiasm is an invisible, spiritual 
thing, but you express it by a roar. ‘The roar 
of a football crowd is a sacrament. If you feel 
a strange quickening of your friendship at the 
moment of parting with your friend, you express 
that invisible thing with a grip of the hand. The 
grip of a hand is a fine sacrament. If a rapture 
of love seizes you at the sight of your mate, and 
your desire is unto her, you express that invisible 
thing by a passionate kiss. A kiss is a more beau- 
tiful sacrament still. And the final consumma- 
tion of love, which for too long we have blas- 


WHY DID CHRIST GO UP? 103 


phemously thought of almost as a thing of shame, 
is the most beautiful sacrament of all. 

All life is sacramental. Therefore Christ was 
a sacrament and did everything sacramentally. 
Therefore he expressed the very difficult idea that 
he had finished his mission, and must change his 
state of conformity with this world to con- 
formity with the world we don’t understand but 
shall understand some day—he expressed this 
difficult idea, in his mercy and condescension and 
his effort to make things easy, like a big brother 
making things easy for his little brothers, by a 
rising off this earth and passing into a cloud. It 
was an expression by an act of a change which 
we have no terms to express. 


IV 


“Go to my brothers and say I go up.” That is 
the first time our Lord uses the word, “‘brothers.”’ 
We have taken the word, ‘‘ascend,” and seen wide 
thoughts in it. Let us glance at the word, 
“brothers.”” Why did our Lord use the word 
“brothers” here for the first time? Surely be- 
cause he wanted to say: “It is as their brother 
that I ascend into heaven. Not as God return- 
ing where he has been before, but as man arriv- 
ing for the first time. I, the Son of God have 
been there before, but I, the son of man, have 


104 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


never been there before. But now man con- 
quers heaven and consolidates his position there. 
Where man has once been, other men can go. 
As your brother, I ascend. What the state is that 
I am going to now, you cannot understand. [ 
can only express it by an ascending lke this. 
But you will go to it too. You will conquer 
death, as your elder brother has done, and you 
will ascend.” The best way to get at Christ’s 
meaning, when he said, “Go to my brothers and 
say I ascend,’ is to alter it to, “Go to my. 
brothers and say we ascend.” 


Vv 


That was the message that Christ entrusted to 
a prostitute for conveyance to ten renegades. He 
sent them word that they would rise higher. He 
sent it by Mary Magdalene to His Holy Catholic 
Church; and His Holy Catholic Church consisted 
of a few men still in their sin. But they were 
unhappy about their sin. And to all of you, if 
you are unhappy about your sin, sends Christ his 
message by a fallen woman: ‘‘Go to my brothers 
in that house and say we ascend.” 

I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the 
Communion of Sinners. The more I think about 
it, the more I[ see that the Communion of Saints 
and the Communion of Sinners mean the same 


WHY DID CHRIST GO UP? 105 


thing. Take courage. It is because Christ sent 
the message by a repentant sinner to worrying 
sinners: “Go to my brothers and say we ascend,” 
that we can say: “I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church, the Communion of Sinners, the Resur- 
rection of the dead, and the Life everlasting.” 


XII: THE WAY THROUGH 


I 


HIS is a talk about The Way Through— 

the way through some great difficulty, sor- 
row, or trial, which seems so impenetrable that 
you hardly dare venture into its darkness—and, 
I’m sorry to say, it has five texts. ‘They are: 
“Follow me’; “And he went forward a little 
way, and fell on the ground and prayed that, if 
it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 
And he said, Abba, Father, take away this cup 
from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine 
be done’; “And there appeared an Angel unto 
him from Heaven, strengthening him”’; “Rise, let 
us be going’”’; ‘‘For the glory that was set before 
him, he endured the cross.” 


II 


It may be that there is one of you, who at this 
very time is overshadowed by an approaching 
trial, which he feels he can never face: whether 
that be so or not, it is certain that all of you, not 
once nor twice in the rest of your story, will 


stand on the hither side of a great trouble, and 
106 


THE WAY THROUGH 107 


be tempted to say: “I can’t go through with it! 
I can’t go through with it!” 

Well, always remember that, no matter how 
dark and terrifying the trouble may be, there has 
gone through it before you the representative 
man, Jesus, our leader. In his character as a 
man, he has explored a route through the dark 
forest; and he has purposely left behind him the 
chart of his journey. 

So, when you stand alone outside your trial, 
and say: “I can’t go through with it! I can’t 
go through with it!’ I want you to hear his 
voice saying: “Follow me, I will show you the 
way through.” 

And you must follow our Lord into the garden 
of Gethsemane. It’s the only place where, if 
your will is bent to breaking point, you will force 
it straight again. 

Will you consider Gethsemane very carefully 
with me for a minute? It’s a glorious story for 
us faltering humans. And that’s why our Lord 
must have told it to his disciples. For have you 
ever realised that the story of Gethsemane, like 
the earlier story of the Temptation, can only have 
come from the lips of our Lord himself? In each 
case he was withdrawn apart from his disciples, 
and went through his agony alone. I have often 
wondered if there isn’t an argument for the 
Resurrection in the existence of this tale of 


108 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Gethsemane. It is not likely that his followers 
would have invented it; and our Lord had no 
time to tell it to them between his agony in the 
garden and his crucifixion on Calvary; so I can 
only imagine he told it in the peace of after-days. 

And he told it, I believe, because it is the 
chart of the way through. 

For first, Gethsemane teaches us for our com- 
fort how far—how very far—the will may be 
bent towards failure without sin. There is no 
sin in the cry: “I don’t want to go through with. 
it!” Did not our Lord cry: ‘Abba, Father, take 
away this cup from me?” Indeed the manhood 
of our Lord was probably never so truly divine, 
and himself never achieved so truly his sonship 
of God, as when his will reached breaking-point, 
and did not break. So you will never be nearer 
your sonship than when your will reaches break- 
ing-point and fails to break. 

And secondly, Gethsemane teaches us that 
there’s no such thing as unanswered prayer. The 
actual request which we make of God may not be 
granted, but the prayer will be answered. Our 
Lord’s request that his trial might pass from him 
was not granted, but his prayer was answered— 
answered with a gift from Heaven of strength 
to march through it. 

“There appeared an Angel unto him from 
Heaven strengthening him.” That statement 


THE WAY THROUGH 109 


must be based on our Lord’s own words: and it 
is remarkable that he used similar words when 
telling his disciples the earlier story of the temp- 
tation; for there, you will remember, he said that 
angels came and ministered to him. Now, if you 
want to enter more deeply into the spiritual truth 
of all this, you will straightway get out of your 
head (as you did in the case of the Temptation 
story) that there was an appearance of an angel 
with streaming white robes and phosphorescent 
wings. We saw that the angels ministering to 
our Lord was the same experience as we know 
when, after temptation, we rise from our knees, 
conquerors, saying: ‘““That’s over; Pve won!” 
We feel then a wonderful elation and joy; and 
perhaps more saintly eyes than ours, gifted with 
a greater clairvoyance, would see, at such a mo- 
ment, the invisible spirits about them. I don’t 
know. It doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that 
matters. 

So much for the angels of the Temptation. 
The angel of Gethsemane is, beyond doubt, ex- 
perienced by us, after an agonising prayer to 
God, in the form of a strange, exhilarating infu- 
sion of strength—strength to march through our 
trouble. We rise from our knees with the will 
braced, full of joy, and capable of all things. 
That was what happened to our Lord. Think of 
the joy with which he rose from his knees—think 


110 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


of the Joy in the garden, as well as the Agony 
in the garden—for, mark well, in so far as our 
salvation was wrought by our Lord’s mastering 
of his will, it was wrought at Gethsemane 
rather than Calvary. 

“Rise, let us be going.” Oh, the beauty of 
those words, following immediately after the 
story of Gethsemane. Don’t you see that they 
mean this: “ve prayed that the cup might pass 
from me, but I see now that it can’t possibly be 
so: still, Pve received strength from my prayer, . 
and I’m ready for all things. Rise, let us be 
going.” And, from that moment, our Lord 
marched straight on Calvary. I want you to get 
a vision of that straight, steady walk, beginning 
with the words: “Rise, let us be going.” The 
Apostles rose and went too, but they couldn’t 
keep up with him. They were overcome and 
fell out on the march. Only the Colonel of that 
battalion arrived at his map-references. And 
John, perhaps. Poor Peter tried to live up to his 
brave words: “Though all should forsake thee, 
yet will not I’; but see, even he is lagging far 
behind. He is not equal to the straight steady 
walk of his master. “Rise, let us be going,” said 
our Lord. And he went. 

You begin to see the chart of the way through. 
First, Gethsemane, where you pray God that 
your forthcoming trial may be removed. Quite 


THE WAY THROUGH 111 


possibly, he will grant you your request, exactly 
as you ask it, and remove the trial; but, if not, 
why, then, you must fight it out in Gethsemane 
with your will; and God will answer your 
prayer with strength. Then you will get up 
from your knees, filled with determination to 
march through, saying: “Rise, let me be going. 
Let me go into the middle of it. Let me go and 
get hurt. Dm its equal. I’m its master.” 
That’s how our Lord did it. ‘I’ve made up 
my mind to go through with it. Id best go 
straight for it.” And he went; and it hurt even 
more than he expected. “My God—my God— 
why hast thou forsaken me? . . . It’s done.” 


III 


But that isn’t all. Our Lord’s will was braced 
in Gethsemane for suffering. But he required 
something to keep it set. He had to keep his 
eyes on something before him, so that his will 
should not falter. What was it. This is most 
wonderful. Think of it! Our Lord was so 
exactly like ourselves—exactly lke a man— 
exactly like a boy—that he kept the glory that 
lay beyond all his trouble as a motive for going 
through with it. For the glory that was set be- 
fore him he endured the cross. And that’s the 
last sign-post on the way through. And surely 


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there’s no more practical lesson. There’s always 
a glory beyond a cross; and, when you’ve made 
your decision in your Gethsemane; when you ve 
risen from your knees with the words: ‘‘Rise, let 
me be going!” then you will not waver, hesitate, 
nor fall, if only you keep your eyes—not on the 
trouble—but on the glory that lies beyond—the 
glory of those days when it shall be only a 
memory, but a memory laden with thoughts of 
victory. 


IV 


Now, let us apply all this to ourselves. 

Is there one of you, who knows perfectly well 
that he ought to confess something to parents, 
or wife, or employer, and thinks: “It’s no good. 
I can’t do it. I can’t go through with it’? 

Is there one of you, who sees the shadow of a 
creat bereavement falling across his feet and 
thinks: “I can’t face it. It’ll be too much for 
me’? 

Is there one who knows that he is sentenced 
to ill-health or pain and thinks: “It’s not worth 
going on’? 

Is there some one, who knows that quite soon 
he will be at the turnstile of death and thinks: 
“Tm afraid of it. I don’t want to venture into 
the darkness alone’? 


THE WAY THROUGH 113 


To one and all, who have trials to face, come 
the words: “Follow me.” “And he went forward 
a little way, and fell on the ground, and prayed 
that, if it were possible, the hour might pass 
from him. And he said, Abba, Father, take 
away this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my 
will, but thine, be done.” ‘And there appeared 
an angel unto him from Heaven, strengthening 
him.” “Rise, let us be going.” ‘For the glory 
that was set before him he endured the cross.” 

Gethsemane, where you bow your head in 
prayer, so that you may have power to lift it for 
the blow; Calvary, where you keep your eyes 
fixed on the glory beyond, and so endure your 
cross, whatever it may be; Paradise, where you 
enter into the glory—the glory of the thought 
that you faced your bereavement with head up- 
lifted and fearless eyes; or that you accepted ill- 
health and pain and were unbeaten by them; or 
that you stepped into death unaffrighted. ‘‘Fol- 
low me”: Gethsemane, Calvary, Paradise. For 
that, unless God sees fit to grant your request and 
remove your trial, is the way through. 


XIV: AN ESSAY ON REUNION 
I 


E are all familiar with those pictures of 

the Transfiguration which show Christ 
raised above the ground with a luminous glory 
all about him, and a lesser but radiant figure on 
either side, Moses to his right and Elijah to his 
left. And the youngest of us could explain that 
Moses was there as representing the Law, and 
Elijah the prophets. But, if we were asked to 
write an essay explaining the full significance of 
the Law and the Prophets to right and left of 
our Lord, I surmise we should spend a consider- 
able time biting the end of our pen and staring 
at a blank sheet of paper. Or probably we 
should have written the title, “The Law and the 
Prophets,’ and drawn an ornamental line be- 
neath. And that’s as far as we should have got. 
Now we'll try to fill up that blank sheet of 
paper. We'll write the essay together. 


II 


The Hebrew State, we have elsewhere seen, 


was exactly like any modern state in possessing 
114 


AN ESSAY ON REUNION 115 


great opposing parties; and, for our present pur- 
poses, we shall consider them as two, a Right and 
a Left. So long as men organise together into 
social communities, there will be a party of the 
Right which stands for the Constitution, tradi- 
tion, the Law as it has been handed down, old 
customs and ceremonies; a party that is glorious 
for such qualities as loyalty even unto death, 
reverence for the past, prudence and caution in 
legislating for the future. And there will be a 
party of the Left, a splendid rebel party which 
desires reform, progress, a new Heaven and a new 
earth, and freedom from old shackles and out- 
worn taboos; a party that is glorious for its 
vision, its divine discontent, its restlessness be-: 
neath dead tradition, and its unconquerable faith 
that the world can be made better for man, and 
man for the world. Trace back through English 
history from the present moment. There is some- 
thing glorious in our Die-hards of to-day, as 
there is also about those who agitate for vast 
changes in the confident hope that such things 
will give to the submerged a fairer chance. Back 
we go through Conservative and Radical, Tory 
and Whig, Jacobite and Hanoverian, till we 
come to the gay, laughing Cavalier, ready to give 
land and plate and gold and life for the sacred 
person of the king, face to face with the glorious. 
but austere figure of Cromwell, training his Iron- 


116 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


sides to pray, as earnestly as they fought, for the 
liberties of the people and the New Order. 


III 


Just so was the Hebrew state. Only, since 
the Hebrew state was a theocratic state—a state, 
that is, that looked to God as its king and or- 
ganised itself as God’s subjects—its politics and 
religion were one and the same thing. ‘Their 
party of the Right was the party of the Law;. 
those who stood for every tittle of the Law as 
given by Moses, and for all the other accumu- 
lated traditions about ceremonial and ritual, and 
about the distinctions between clean and un- 
clean. The danger of such a party is always, of 
course, to worship the tradition and the established 
order for their own sake, and to forget that estab- 
lished institutions are only means to an end— 
morality and right-dealing among men. So they 
had their bitter opponents, the truly amazing, 
splendidly rebel party of the Prophets; those 
austere preachers of righteousness and reform. 
It was a party that lashed vigorously the priests 
and the kings; generally a lonely, unpopular, 
puritan party; but it never failed to produce 
great, towering figures that could dominate the 
throne. One by one these great leaders of the 
Prophetical party appeared; and passed, but not 


AN ESSAY ON REUNION EET 


until they had handed their banner into the firm 
hands of a successor. And their banner, we may 
say, bore the party cry: “Mercy, not sacrifice.” 
Who is this all-powerful commoner that dares. 
to approach King Saul when he is flushed with 
victory and to ask: ‘What meaneth this bleating 
of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the 
oxen which I hear? ‘You were commanded of 
God to destroy them, and you kept them for sac- 
rifice. Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt 
offerings and sacrifice as in obeying the voice of 
the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacri- 
fice!’ And see, the terrible old man hews Agag 
in pieces. It is Samuel, the prophet, the king- 
maker, who is powerful enough to overthrow 
Saul, and set up a shepherd boy on his throne. 
Again, who is this stern figure that dares to point 
the finger of denunciation at the all-conquering 
David and to accuse him of adultery and mur- 
der? ‘Thou art the man,” says Nathan, the 
fearless prophet. Again, what is this dark figure 
that rises in the path before King Ahab, and de- 
nounces the king’s annexation of Naboth’s vine- 
yard, and the bloody deeds of Jezebel, Ahab’s 
queen? “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy,” 
asks Ahab, ‘“‘thou that troubleth Israel.’ It is 
Elijah; and he goes off to anoint another king. 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, and the rest, carry on 
Elijah’s torch, till at last we see it in the hands 


118 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


of the great hermit who wore a raiment of 
camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his 
loins: the heroic figure that dared to rebuke the 
incest of King Herod, and paid for it with his 
life. 


IV 


Yes, the key to a true reading of the Old Tes- 
tament is to understand that it is largely the po- 
lemical writings of these two strongly opposed - 
parties. The books of Moses are the treasured 
tradition of the party of the Law and the Priestly 
castes, and the magnificent series.of rhapsodies— 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many of the psalms—are 
the imperishable literature of the rebel Prophets. 


V 


And lo! both in amicable agreement on either 
side of the transfigured Christ, Moses, the great 
law-giver, and Elijah, the prince of the prophets! 
Both appearing as gloréous; both, when the true 
character of Jesus shines through, finding their 
point of union and harmony in him; both ac- 
knowledging that their divided lines meet in the 
death that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. 
Jesus endorses the truth that is in both. He has, 
so to speak, a hand for each. “I came, not to 


AN ESSAY ON REUNION 119 


destroy the Law, but to fulfil it. Every priestly 
sacrifice of the old temple service was good, in 
that it taught a sense of sin and of the necessity 
of atonement and foreshadowed my own sacri- 
fice—as did the scapegoat of the Law, and the 
Passover Lamb. You did well in so jealously 
guarding the old tradition: and I endorse it by 
transfiguring some of it into Christian cere- 
monies. Your Passover feast shall be my Holy 
Communion. But all must be saved from for- 
malism by the message of the Prophets. That 
indeed have I come to endorse. I will have 
mercy and not sacrifice. Ye must not tithe 
mint, and anise, and cummin, and forget the 
weightier matters of kindness and pity. These 
things ye ought to have done, and not to have 
left the others undone. The old Law was right, 
when it said, Thou shalt not, Thou shalt not, 
Thou shalt not; but it must be warmed by the 
great, positive Prophetical Law, Thou shalt love, 
Thou shalt love. On these two commandments 
hang both the Law and the Prophets. They are 
the truth of both Moses and Elias. Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do unto you, even so 
do, unto ‘them:) for this is)the Law. and’ the 
Prophets. This is both Moses and Elias.” 


120 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


VI 


So Christ unites both the formalist and the 
spiritualist (that is, the one who says, “God is 
Spirit, and He must be worshipped in spirit 
only”), as he always unites the outward and 
visible with the inward and spiritual. When 
shall we learn the lesson? We haven't learnt it 
in two thousand years. Christ is hardly ascended 
ere Peter appears to be rather for the Law, and 
Paul for the spirit: they quarrel, Paul withstand-. 
ing Peter to the face, because he stood for certain 
questions of meats and circumcision, and beggarly 
elements of the Law. Need I remind you that 
the great line of Popes has confessedly followed 
Peter, and become the party of the Law, the cere- 
monial and ritual party, while the old prophetical 
spirit has blazed again in John Wyclif, Martin 
Luther, John Huss, Ridley, Latimer, and Wes- 
ley? Need I tell you again the story of our 
royal martyr, Charles, who, with all his faults, 
yet died for the old tradition, which was the Law 
to him; and of Archbishop Laud, who was con- 
tent to follow the lead of his king; or, on the 
other side, the indomitable deeds and sufferings 
of the early Noncomformists? Need I point at 
the present moment to Rome on the extreme right 
of Christendom, and the Quaker on the extreme 
left; so obviously the old Law and the old 


AN ESSAY ON REUNION 121 


Prophets. Rome appears to have built the tab- 
ernacle for Moses, and the Quakers that for 
Elias. 


VII 


Don’t you think that, when we have learned 
the lesson of the Transfiguration, where both the 
Law and the Prophets appeared as glorious, we 
shall have learned much that will help us to 
Reunion? Both types of mind find their point 
of union and harmony in Jesus. 

Both are necessary. ‘There is no salutary dis- 
cipline, nor well-ordered spiritual life, without 
the Law; without a system of observances, duties, 
and spiritual exercises. From want of the will- 
building that comes from such rigorous things, we 
shall probably end by giving a sort of sentimental 
assent to the prophetic message of love and free- 
dom, and really being quite selfish, irreligious, 
unpractising Christians. But most necessary, too, 
is the prophetical message, lest the Law, the 
forms, and ceremonies become mere shibboleths 
and fetishes, unvitalised by sincerity and love. 


Vill 


I have always liked to indulge a dream that 
one day, not in our lifetime, perhaps, nor our 


122 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


children’s, but at some distant date in the womb 
of time, there will be a great Reunion Sunday. 
It will be a Sunday when all the churches the 
world over will sing in their separated tabernacles 
Te Deum, in thanksgiving to God that the old 
feuds are over, and Christendom, as from that 
moment, is united. And I like to hope that for 
that day they will choose the Feast of the Trans- 
figuration, for there we see that both are glorious, 
the Law and the Prophets; and that, when they 
draw together, Christ rises transfigured between 
them. 


XV: THE ATTACK OF THE 
STRONG MAN 


I 


HE Strong man armed, says our Lord, 
keeps his goods in peace: but, if there is 
a neighbour, stronger and better-armed than he, 
the peace can only be a comparative one, full of 
doubt and apprehension. It is not until that 
stronger neighbour, the warrior who is unmatched 
in his equipment and strength, attacks and wins 
the goods for himself that they can really be kept 
in peace. Of course, our Lord, by the first and 
lesser strong man armed, meant Satan; and, by 
the second and better armed, that confident neigh- 
bour who haunts and harasses the outworks till 
the citadel falls, he meant himself. Therefore, 
whenever I shall speak of the strong man armed, 
who really keeps his goods in peace, understand 
I shall mean our true proprietor, Christ. 

Now, let me sketch for you your own spiritual 
life, and you will see how full of meaning it all 
is. ‘There was a time once—was there not—when 
you threw up your allegiance to Christ and de- 
cided to be free of him. Perhaps it was doubt 
that worked the rebellion; or, more probably, just 


the difficulty of being a Christian, and the dislike 
123 


124 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


of all the self-sacrifice that it involved. You 
were anxious lest, having Christ, ‘“you must have 
nought beside.” So you threw it all up; and 
Christ became, no longer your owner, but just a 
neighbour, very powerful, who quartered without 
your gates. And, oh! at first, you found it good 
to be free. It was good to be able to get into 
bed without the arduous exercise of prayer; it 
was good to be at liberty to lie in bed on a Sunday 
morning, or to spend the day walking on the 
headlands and looking out to sea, and no longer 
to be in two minds about the Sunday golf-links 
or the Sunday cinema; it was good to be a little 
less guarded with your tongue, a little less strict 
about money matters, and a little less liberal, 
maybe, in your charities. Yes, there was much 
that Satan could give to you, his prodigal; but, 
tell me, could he give you peace? could he give 
you happiness? could he satisfy you? was there 
not all the time a repining restlessness? 

Then pain came. What form it took I know 
not; ill-health, perhaps; or business trouble; or 
mental depression; or anxiety; or bereavement; 
but, actually, there attacked with it the strong 
man armed, that warrior without the gates, 
who must become your adversary, because he 
is your “lover; )//Wes, he: attacked +) "and nem 
thought asserted itself: ‘Perhaps—perhaps, 
after all, he zs the only solution to all diffi- 


THE ATTACK OF THE STRONG MAN 125 


culties, and the only giver of serenity and 
quiet happiness.” But probably you repulsed 
the assault, and it passed: you patched up your 
trouble; and on went your life, giving you a cer- 
tain amount of pleasure and interest, but never, 
never giving you a sense of freedom from sham 
and hypocrisy; nor self-respect, security, and 
peace. Then pain came once more; and, behind 
it, the strong man armed attacked again. You 
took refuge in reviling God as unjust and cruel, 
and swore that you would not be scourged into 
submission. But the thought haunted you: “I 
wonder if all these successive pains are really a 
mark of his favour—not punishment—no, no— 
but just Christ beating up to win me. And, oh! 
it would be good to be won. It would be very 
calm, very quiet.” You flung yourself upon 
your knees, and, while you could not pray very 
collectedly, bits of remembered prayers came 
easily to your lips: “God be merciful to me, a 
sinner.” “Speak the word only, and thy servant 
shall be healed.”’ “O Lamb of God, I come.”’ 
“Jesu, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom 
fly.” A calm settled down upon you; and you 
rose quietly and happily from your knees. Pos- 
sibly you walked to the window, and, gazing out, 
thought: “This is peace.” The strong man armed 
had come to keep his goods in peace. 

I do not say that thenceforward you were free 


126 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


from all pain, and all struggle. As a matter of 
fact, a peace, where there is no struggle is in- 
conceivable, for one of man’s greatest joys, that 
he would miss most, is the joy of triumphing over 
obstacles. But, amid such adversity as God was 
pleased to send you, there was a patience, resig- 
nation, and peace in believing. 

Perhaps, later on, you were guilty of another 
backsliding, another rebellion. Perhaps some of 
you are still in a state of temporary revolt. If 
so, you are conscious, are you not, of the undis- 
couraged attack of the strong man armed? I sus- 
pect you resist it with the words: “‘What’s the 
good? I’ve surrendered to Christ before, and 
always sooner or later, dropped back into sin?” 
But the attacks continue—and will continue. And 
to all of you who are saying to yourselves: “Yes, 
this is my story that he is telling,” let me add 
this for your comfort. Your destiny is probably 
written in two words, Final Perseverance. Fi- 
nally you will persevere. One day you will 
finally surrender. Why not to-day? I promise 
you, not freedom from struggling, but great 
peace, confidence, quiet, and a glowing happiness. 





II 


I wonder why this train of ideas was suggested 
to me by a visit to the British cemeteries on the 


THE ATTACK OF THE STRONG MAN 127 


old Somme battlefields. J think it was because 
we are none of us selfish in our desire of salva- 
tion; and we feel that it is not enough to find 
peace for ourselves: we wish also to think of those 
whom we have lost as wrapped in the peace of 
the strong man armed. 

A few days ago I was standing in the cemetery 
at Forceville, near Albert, which is now com- 
plete. I think I have never seen anything that 
is so exactly true to the reserved genius of the 
British people. As you know, the gravestones 
are ail exactly alike; square, straight, and ar- 
ranged in lines of military precision. The turf 
about them is as close and weedless as an Eng- 
lish lawn. At one end, upon three wide steps, 
stands the long Stone of Remembrance, shaped 
like an altar, but devoid of garniture save for its 
words: “Their name liveth for evermore.” At 
the other end, there rises, tapering, the tall, 
slender Cross of Sacrifice. ‘The headstones, the 
Cross of Sacrifice, and the Stone of Remembrance 
are all in the same white stone. The only colour 
is the green of the close turf, and the flowers 
tended by English gardeners. ‘The atmosphere 
of this cemetery is the atmosphere of Lon- 
don’s Cenotaph: a calm, proud reticence, austere 
and uncomplaining. As I stood there I felt I 
must be standing in the most tranquil spot in the 
whole world; and I thought, ““This is a good ex- 


128 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


ample of the power of man’s art to express, even 
in stone, healing thought. In this cemetery there 
is no room for bitterness.” 

Another evening I visited the still incomplete 
cemetery of Vignacourt. There was the same 
Cross of Sacrifice, and the same Stone of Remem- 
brance. But there was another thing; and the 
sight of it gave me a sudden minute of deep 
emotion. It was a statue placed there by the 
French people of the Commune of Vignacourt, 
and it represented a French sentry, resting on his 
rifle, and guarding the graves of his allies. And 
on the pedestal was written what our English 
reserve could never have written, but what the 
fine unreserve of the French could not have failed 
to write. ‘The words were: 


‘‘O BROTHERS IN ARMS, 
FALLEN ON THE FIELD OF HONOUR, 
SLEEP IN PEACE, 

WE ARE WATCHING OVER YOU.” 


Good people, all these men, though they prob- 
ably never told you anything about it, went 
through the same spiritual experience that I have 
outlined—the sense of the repeated attacks of the 
strong man armed. And I think that the moment 
when Death seemed inevitable was in many cases 
the last victorious attack of the Tremendous 


THE ATTACK OF THE STRONG MAN 129 


Lover, so that he encamped around them with 
his great peace, even before he took them into 
his nearer presence. 

I know of what I am speaking; for once in the 
war, I felt certain that everything would be over 
before sunset. I had often thought it quite likely 
that the end was near, but, on this occasion the 
certainty was as great as that of a condemned 
prisoner on the day of execution. I am not sorry 
now to have known that moment, for it enabled 
me to experience the emotions of those awaiting 
immediate death: and I find it hard to believe 
that any man can be so hardened as not to make 
the final surrender then. I do not suggest that 
those who surrendered at the moment of death 
were ready to go straight to Heaven, for, as I 
have told you, peace does not mean freedom from 
struggling, but rather contains within itself the 
joy of triumphing over obstacles; but I do sug- 
gest that they who are beyond, and you who yet 
remain, if your experience is such as I have de- 
scribed, are almost certainly destined to persevere 
finally, and so to converge upon that Heaven 
where there shall be no more sorrow nor crying, 
for there, indeed, the strong man armed, will 
keep his goods in peace. 


XVI: THE GOD OF JACOB 
I 


WANT now just to re-tell an old story in 

new terms. I shall seek thereby to right a 
great wrong, and to re-establish in your affection 
one of the big men of all time. There is, in 
English minds, a misinterpretation and dislike of. 
the character of the patriarch, Jacob. An East- 
ern and mystical mind is much quicker to see the 
beauty in Jacob’s soul; but we western, material, 
and sporting nations are all partisans of his fine, 
material, and sporting brother, Esau. And, until 
we understand Jacob aright, we can never learn 
the pregnant lesson which is taught us by the 
fact that God preferred Jacob to Esau. “I am 
the God of Jacob.” And, just because of our 
natural sympathy for Esau, it is necessary for 
us westerns to learn the lesson. We are such 
Esaus, ourselves. I wonder if I can retell the 


story. 


1T 


There was once a beautiful and attractive 


woman, with all the makings of a good wife, a 
130 


THE GOD OF JACOB Pol 


loving mother, and a keen servant of God. But, 
inasmuch as she lived in a primitive age, she 
mixed a good deal of superstition with her re- 
ligion. Her name was Rebekkah. And there 
came a-wooing her, as she led her camels to 
water, the son of a great sheik; and she married 
him, and entered right-heartily into all his ideals. 
For Isaac was a true son of his grand old father, 
Abraham, that spiritual explorer who firmly be- 
lieved that through his seed a great revelation 
and blessing should be given to the world, and 
that this same Isaac, who had been born to him 
in his old age, was obviously the child of prom- 
ise, through whom the strange family hope should 
be handed down. Rebekkah, like a good wife, 
identified herself with all this: and when she, in 
her turn, felt a stirring of Isaac’s offspring in her 
womb, she hastened to an oracle, after her fashion 
at once religious and superstitious, to enquire 
about the future of the life that she should bring 
into the world. And the oracle gave forth an 
enigmatic utterance that filled the future with 
mystery: 


“Two nations are in thy womb, 

And two manner of people shall be separated 
from thy bowels, 

And the elder shall serve the younger.” 


132 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


III 


Little wonder that Rebekkah watched with in- 
terest the growth of the two boys that were born 
to her. And on evenings, when she doubtless 
told them at her knee all about their magnificent 
old grandfather, Abraham, and the strange Hope 
that lodged in the family, this is what she would 
see: the elder, Esau, a fine boy, with cheeks ruddy 
from open-air sports, and eyes sparkling with 
health, and breast, I dare say, generally empty of. 
breath from running, would be restive and inat- 
tentive, and anxious to be out in the fields to see 
his gins and traps; while the other, the younger, 
a quiet, dreamy boy, would fix her with thrilled 
and captured eyes, responding at once to the 
family aspiration, and dreaming of being a big 
patriarch like grandfather Abraham, rich in spir- 
itual gifts and not without great wealth in 
lands and cattle. No doubt Rebekkah loved her 
lively and feckless Esau, but her whole heart 
went out to the wide-eyed, imaginative and sen- 
sitive Jacob. In him only could she see the 
potential greatness worthy of Abraham; and she 
would regret that he was not the first-born, the 
child that should inherit the hope. And often 
there recurred to her the mysterious words of the 
oracle: ““The elder shall serve the younger.” 


THE GOD OF JACOB 133 


IV 


Then a little thing happened which exactly 
illustrated the two boys’ characters. One bright 
day about dinner-time Esau _ returned—such 
boys have a habit of returning about dinner-time 
—and he was flushed, breathless, and as hungry 
as the hunter he was. “Food,” he said; “give 
me food, or I shall forthwith die.” ‘‘Well, look 
here,”’ said Jacob, “‘here’s a bargain’’—evidently 
boys were the same unpleasant things then that 
they are now—“‘if I give you up this food, will 
you let me be the eldest son, so to speak, and 
inherit the great promise?’ (You see, Jacob, 
true son of his mother, was mixing with his re- 
markable gift for religion that superstition which 
thinks you can trick or compel God.) Now the 
food smelt good, and Esau said something like 
this: “Oh, I can’t worry about all your pretty 
ideas for the future. If I don’t eat, I shall die; 
and a live dog’s better than a dead lion. A bird 
in the hand’s worth two in the bush. It’s a bar- 
gain.” ‘Thus Esau, in this small incident, showed 
his utter inability to follow in the steps of that 
great explorer, Abraham. He was delightful, 
but he was a child of the moment. He was not 
destined to join the immortals. The other, in 
spite of much in his character that was perverse, 
was the one to watch. 


134 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Vv 


Time passed; and Isaac, their father, reached 
the point of death. Rebekkah, in her supersti- 
tion, was desperate. To her, Isaac’s death-bed 
blessing would mean everything. Surely, surely, 
young Jacob was the only one who could carry 
on the tradition. He had a manifest gift for 
God, while Esau had none. It would really be 
a kindness to God to secure that Isaac’s blessing 
should fall on Jacob’s head. She was the boy’s 
mother, and she ought to know. Such a character 
as Rebekkah’s, at once religious and superstitious, 
always thinks that the end justifies the means; 
and so we have the dark story of the deceit 
played on Isaac and the trapping of the bless- 
ing. Poor young Jacob, in his overmastering 
desire, implanted by his mother, to co-operate 
with God for the betterment of the world, really 
thought, or tried to think, that it could be done 
by trickery. And the blind Isaac blessed him. 


“See the smell of my son ts as the smell of a 
field which the Lord hath blessed. 

Therefore God give thee of the dew of Heaven, 
and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of 
corn and wine. 

Let people serve thee |This is where the ambi- 
tious Jacob thrilled with excitement.], and 
let nations bow down to thee.” 


THE GOD OF JACOB 135 


VI 


Now, we know Esau’s type, generous, but 
head-strong and hot-headed; not the type to 
offend. Rebekkah saw the gleaming vengeance 
in his eyes, and heard his words: ‘For this, 
Brother Jacob dies”; and the poor woman, fright- 
ened at her own sin, said to Jacob: “Hasten 
away! Fly! No time to lose! Fly to the uncle, 
my brother Laban; but come back to me—come 
back one day. Am I to lose husband and son in 
a single day?” 

And Jacob fled quickly, as all guilty youths 
have to fly, over bleak and stony hills, getting 
dusty and footsore. His pleasant sin, like the 
dead-sea apples, had turned to dust and ashes in 
his mouth. He had lost home and father and 
mother; and Esau, his twin-brother, was waiting 
to kill him. The magnitude of the disaster was 
showing him, though he would reject the conclu- 
sion, that the act which he had tried to justify was 
really a despicable treachery. I think I know what 
his thoughts were as he stumbled along. He was 
feeling a dogged indifference, a hard fatalism; 
trying to persuade himself that he was the of- 
fended party and not the offender; and all the 
while, as always in such moments, there was a 
haunting desire to admit guilt, and to fling him- 
self upon a compassionate God, surrendering to 


136 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


him, and henceforth essaying sanctification. At 
last, tired out, on a bleak spot, where there was 
nothing but stones, he threw himself down in a 
careless collapse. He put the stones under his 
head, and, in utter physical and mental weari- 
ness, slept. And he dreamed. And in his dream 
his true undernature asserted itself, that aspira- 
tion to spiritual greatness which was his noblest 
thing. He dreamed that the stones round about 
piled themselves up into steps that ascended to 
Heaven. Jacob dreamed of scaling Heaven. And 
he saw God at the summit, and the angels. 

It’s rather pathetic—a punished boy, lying 
down defiantly and dreaming of angels. It re- 
veals that loftier quality which two people had 
always seen, his mother and God. And these are 
the two, I suppose (putting all sentimentality 
aside), who do see mainly the noblest in us. It 
was because of this spirituality that his mother 
made a favourite of him, and God was content to 
say: “I am the God of Jacob.” 


VII 


He woke to find the dawn on the hills. He 
felt at once humiliated, contrite, ready to accept 
punishment, and yet confident. After the man- 
ner of his great ancestor, Abraham, for he was 


THE GOD OF JACOB 137 


a real chip of that old block, he set up an altar, 
using for the purpose the pillow on which he had 
dreamed of God. And he explained to God his 
readiness to serve him, and his hope that God 
would remunerate him with wealth. 

Now, don’t judge Jacob too hardly: look into 
your own heart and see if he isn’t exactly like 
you. His surrender to God was not complete. 
He wanted to be good, but at the same time to 
hug his less noble ambitions. We're all the 
same. We'd all love the peace and rest which 
come from giving ourselves utterly to God, 
but there are certain ruling desires and habits we 
cannot forgo. Jacob longed to be a great sheik 
like Abraham, with wives and sons, and camels 
and oxen and sheep. And he tried to harmonise 
this earthly ambition with his spiritual ambition, 
as we all do, till we learn our lesson, whether we 
be kaisers or popes or grocers or parsons. God 
only occupies the whole of our territory by de- 
grees. So we see Jacob still scheming, sometimes 
perhaps unscrupulously, to be a great and wealthy 
man. And he largely succeeds, as he works with 
his uncle Laban. That is the uglier side of his 
character, as it is with most of us: the more beau- 
tiful side, the idealistic, the affectionate, and the 
capacity for self-sacrifice, is shown by one sen- 
tence, which it would be painting the lily to 


138 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


elaborate: “And Jacob loved Rachel; and Jacob 
served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed 
but a few days for the love he had to her.” 

I will only glance at the thought that God was 
serving twenty—thirty years to win Jacob; and 
I suspect they seemed but a few days for the 
love he had to him. 


Vill 


And so to the last scene. We witness Jacob 
returning to his home-country, a rich man, with 
his wives and his sons, and his camels and oxen 
and sheep. Doubtless he thought God had ac- 
cepted his harmony between his worldly ambi- 
tions and his spiritual ambitions, since he had 
thus so prospered him. But not so: God was only 
assembling to attack again. For, as Jacob drew 
near the home he had left years before, there was 
brought to him the alarming message: “Behold, 
Esau, thy brother, cometh to meet thee with four 
hundred men.” 

Ah! was he to be dogged for ever with his old 
sin. Had not God forgotten, or at least for- 
given? ‘Terror overwhelmed him: and, as often 
comes at such a moment, a sense at last of the 
folly of compromising and compounding with 
God. He saw that fighting against the highest 
that was in him was fighting against God. And 
he must either surrender finally to God, or let 


THE GOD OF JACOB 139 


him go. “O God of my father Abraham’’—you 
hear the true Jacob speaking—“‘God of Isaac, the 
Lord which said unto me, Return unto thy coun- 
try, and I will deal well with thee. I am not 
worthy of the least of all thy mercies: for with 
my staff I passed over Jordan, and now I am 
become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, 
from the hands of my brother Esau, for I fear 
him, lest he will come and smite me, and the 
mother with the children.” 

Time was short. Esau was drawing near. 
Jacob had to fight his last fight with God, since 
now he knew that yielding to anything less than 
the highest was fighting against God. He had 
to decide whether he would hold to God, or lose 
him for ever, together with the hope of being 
the channel of God’s great promise to the world. 
He wanted to be alone, to fight it out. It was 
dark now, and he had reached the river at the 
ford Jabbok. He sent over all his company, and 
remained alone on the hither bank, as if he 
would not cross till he had made his decision. 
He fell on his knees. He must make the sur- 
render: he could not lose God, and with God, the 
blessing and hope of his family. In his agony 
it seemed that he actually was wrestling with 
God in the darkness, holding him that he might 
not go, and crying: “I will not let thee go, except 
thou bless me.” It is only the boy who had 


140 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


wanted so much his father’s blessing—grown old. 
But he saw now that God’s was the blessing men 
must seek, and God could not bless what is 
marred with self-seeking and duplicity. He had 
reached exactly that spiritual state expressed in 
the climax of the Hound of Heaven, when God 
is fast winning, and the soul cries: “My harness, 
piece by piece, thou hast hewn from me, and 
smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly.” 

The contest began to decline; and Jacob knew 
that God was victorious—which was to say that 
himself was victorious, for, in this contest, vic- 
tory was surrender to God. He knew that God, 
his assailant, had accepted and blessed him. It 
seemed that God said he should no more be called 
Jacob, but Israel, which means (not, a prince 
with God) but just this: God perseveres. With 
such as Jacob—that is with such struggling, but 
spiritual, people as ourselves—God perseveres till 
he wins them. Maybe he serves twenty, thirty, 
forty years to win them, and they seem but a few 
days for the love he has to them. God is the 
God of Jacob. 

“And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and 
behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred 
men.’ And Esau, so splendid in his lesser way, 
ran to meet Jacob, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him. 


XVII: THE ROYAL LINE 


I 


DO not believe that we shall ever succeed 

in making Ascension Day, or even Easter 
Day, so popular a festival as Christmas. It can 
never win the popular imagination in the same 
way. Most people, I think, believe that the 
world was all the better for the birth of that 
little baby at Bethlehem. ‘They see why they 
should rejoice at his coming: they do not see so 
well why they should rejoice at his departure. 
And, as it is now, so it was in the beginning. 
Everybody burst into song and worship and 
present-giving that first Christmas-tide: Zacha- 
riah, Mary, the shepherds, the angels, and the 
magi. But at the first Ascension Day, the men 
of Galilee only stood gazing up into heaven. It 
was not till they had been instructed that they 
returned with great joy, and went and wor- 
shipped in the temple. It is my part now to try 
to instruct you, so that you may worship. 


IT 


So we tell it as a story, entitled “The Royal 


Line.” 
141 


142 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


We are going as far down into the roots of it 
all as we can get. We look back into the mists 
before the universe was created, and we see— 
what? Why, God dreaming; as we men, made 
in his likeness, dream; God dreaming of all that 
he was going to do. He was going to create 
something, and it was going to be very good. 
He was going to create a world, as a means 
whereby he could produce after ages and ages of 
growth, a being very like God, intellectual, free- 
willed, loving. That being, Man, should issue 
from the world, and become a fitting companion 
for God. 

That was the dream. Now pause for a minute 
to meet the first objection. Agnostic philoso- 
phers have always recorded their great diffi- 
culty in believing in the creation of something 
out of nothing; and they fall back on the only 
possible alternative, the eternity of matter— 
which is at least as difficult to believe as the 
creation of something out of nothing. The 
creation of the world is mot the creation of 
something out of nothing: it is the creation of 
something out of God. God is love; and love 
must create out of itself. Even our human love 
must create; if it reaches its consummation, it 
creates something out of itself—it creates a little 
child. We talk of procreation. And more, we 
would appear to be just discovering that, if this 


THE ROYAL LINE 143 


force of procreation in man be repressed, it will 
issue in the creation of things of the imagination: 
poems, symphonies, great business schemes, or 
perhaps vast military plans. It must create some- 
thing that did not exist before: something mate- 
rial, or something spiritual. And God is the 
fountain-head of that force. And so came crea- 
tion and the sun. And this (reading the Bible 
alongside of that other bible which God has 
written in the rocks of the earth) seems to be 
the story. 

From the sun was flung off a flaming mass, 
which continued to spin round it, cooling the 
while. As it cooled, the steam round about it 
condensed into water on the hot, bare, volcanic 
rocks, and ran into warm seas. And there in that 
warm water life appeared. But the solid land 
was still stone-dead and naked. Life, in its va- 
tious low forms, crept up from the water, accom- 
modating itself first to the mud where the tides 
rolled back; then to the steaming lagoons; then 
to the inland marshes; and at last to dry land— 
CVElyOUMscesG@an ascension, an) vascentinw\ ne 
under-water animals became the half-water— 
half-land animals; and finally these amphibians 
climbed the hills. And somewhere among all 
those low species of life was the royal line that 
should culminate in man. We cannot find it; 
but there in the hot seas, there in the oppressive 


144 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


lagoons, there in the tepid fens, there on the 
sloping hills ascended the royal house of man. 
And then, when the mammals, emancipated from 
water, were developing brain, and some social 
instinct, the air chilled; and, creeping menacingly 
over the world, came the ice. Now, look to it, 
all you living things, only the best of you will 
survive. Together with many other brother 
creatures, the Royal House, possibly because they 
had discovered fire, stood the test. Nay, the 
hardship probably schooled them to better things 
than they had known; for, when the fourth and 
last glacial age passed away, it was to reveal man 
in the ascendant, and the royal house on the 
throne. 

And it may be somewhere about this time that 
there happened that wonderful thing, which is 
meant in Holy Scripture when it says: “God 
breathed into man’s nostrils, and man became a 
living soul.” Just as a king might invest his 
favourite son with certain prerogatives of the 
crown, and carte blanche in many matters, so 
God—perhaps by a sudden move, but more prob- 
ably by a gradual education—invested his fa- 
vourite with conscious free-will, obviously so 
that the love, obedience, and worship, which was 
going to rejoice him, might be voluntary and 
not forced, and thus more beautiful: for God 
ever aims at the more beautiful. So God took 


THE ROYAL LINE 145 


his great and loving risk with the Royal Line, 
and the Royal Line failed. 

Now, that’s not extraordinary. All the story, 
up to this, shows God giving to the various forms 
of life their chance to make good, and win 
through hardship, necessarily in their own 
strength, because that alone would develop them 
into higher forms. And the Royal Line has 
ascended through all the material tests, but failed 
in the spiritual test, through which alone it can 
ascend to God. 


III 


That closes the first half of the story. To un- 
derstand the next move you must consider the 
amazingly true doctrine of the Trinity, or at 
least of a Plurality of Persons within the God- 
head. If you think deep enough, you will see 
that the idea of a plurality of persons within the 
godhead, though not discoverable by reason, 1s, 
when once revealed, not only comfortable to rea- 
son, but even inevitable. God is love: and can 
you imagine love without an object for its affec- 
tion? Perfect Love must from all eternity have 
had a perfectly satisfying object, and a recipro- 
cating object, for its love: and that’s what we 
mean by the eternally begotten son of the Father, 
God from God. Truly, if God is love, it has al- 


146 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


ways seemed to me easier to believe in God as 
more than one person than as God eternally 
alone. 

Now what is the problem before God? He 
has to bring the Royal Line—or, at any rate, a 
smaller royal line within the fallen house—to the 
consummation of its destiny, which is to issue 
from this world to the side of God. But it has 
missed the way: and I say with the utmost truth, 
There is nothing wonderful about the Incarna- 
tion. It has its parallel every time a father sends 
out his elder son to look for a lost child. | 

Now, Christ came to reveal God to man; but 
to-day, in the light of the Ascension, we need 
only consider the other aspect: that Christ came 
to reveal man to man—to reveal what man’s 
capability was; to show what it meant to be a 
man as God dreamed him; to show that God de- 
signed man for worship, as he designed the limpet 
for the rock, or the snail for the thorn; and, 
above all, to demonstrate that, if only man loves, 
obeys, and worships, then there is nothing on this 
earth that can hold him from his destiny, which 
is to issue from this world to the side of God. 

It must have seemed incredible that the Royal 
Line, when in the water, could ever have breathed 
the air above the surface; but it ascended to the 
lagoons. In the moist air of the marshes, it 
must have seemed incredible that the line could 


THE ROYAL LINE 147 


ever breathe the dry, rarefied air of the hills; but 
it ascended to the uplands. There (to push on 
into spiritual things) it must have seemed in- 
credible that the line could ever breathe the rare- 
fied air of abstract ideals, but, as it ascended in 
intellect, it produced Gautama, Plato, and the 
Hebrew Prophets. To us, even at this height, 
which is where we are now, it may seem incredi- 
ble that the Royal Line can finally breathe the 
air of Heaven, and the atmosphere of the angels. 
But we are there already! The greatest prince 
of our house has taken his seat. And the Ascen- 
sion is therefore the feast of the Final Promotion 
of Man. It is the Feast of the Glorification of 
Man. As Swinburne said, though he meant some- 
thing far different: “Glory to Man in the highest, 
for Man is the master of things.’ One might 
almost say that it is the Feast of the Apotheosis 
of Man. I charge you, therefore, understand 
these things and worship. 


XVIII: THE TALE OF A PHRASE 


I 


NE day in the dawn of the fourth century 
there was playing beneath the Egyptian 

skies of Alexandria a small boy. He was play- 
ing at baptisms. One after another he gathered 
his friends together, and (let us hope it did not 
seem so profane to God as it does to us) pro- 
ceeded to baptise them in the name of the Father 
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. This 
interest in things ecclesiastical became later a 
distinct vocation; and the boy, when he was 
about sixteen, attracted the notice of the old 
Bishop of Alexandria, Alexander, who took him 
into his household, made him his secretary, and 
determined that he should be devoted to the min- 
istry. The boy’s name was Athanasius, and we 
are told that he was small of stature, but with a 
face radiant like an angel. He early displayed 
exceptional brilliance, and, when barely twenty, 
had written some remarkable theological books. 
Now, working in the oldest church of Alex- 
andria at that time, was a parish priest called 
Arius. He was a tall person with a melancholy 


face, and something sinister, perhaps, in his 
148 


THE TALE OF A PHRASE 149 


manner, but with a voice of singular sweetness. 
One writer tells us that he had attracted seven 
hundred ladies to his way of thinking. 

I suppose few people in the year 313 A.D. 
could have foretold that the small youth in Alex- 
ander’s household and the tall priest were going 
to fight for the possession of the church. But it 
was So. 

The fuse was lit, the train fired, and the ex- 
plosion created by the old bishop, Alexander, 
himself. He had issued a charge to his clergy, 
in which he insisted very strongly on the doc- 
trine of the Trinity and of our Lord’s co-equality 
with the Father. And Arius, the tall priest, 
startled the world by accusing his bishop of 
heresy, and giving his own version of the rela- 
tion of the Son to the Father. 

The doctrine that Arius promulgated, known 
henceforward as Arianism, was very plausible. 
It was that Christ was not co-equal and co- 
eternal with the Father, but the first and greatest 
of his creatures, created, if you will, before all 
time, and invested with the attributes of God- 
head by the Father: it was crystallised in the 
sentence, There was once when Christ was not. 

Arius, having thrown down his challenge and 
published his faith, showed himself a master of 
publicity and propaganda. He invented all sorts 
of catch-phrases and easy rhymes for circulating 


150 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


among the people, till the boys in the market 
place, the labourers at their work, and the 
sailors on the quays were singing and bandying 
his light rhymes about the Trinity. 

Instantly the penetrating intellect of young 
Athanasius, in Alexander’s court, saw that Chris- 
tianity was at stake. He saw that this subor- 
dination of Christ to the Father would make him, 
not a God, but a vulgar, heathen demigod; and, 
if Christ was not of the same essence (or sub- 
stance, as the word became known), but only of 
like essence, then he was very little more than 
ourselves who are created in the likeness of God, 
and have much that is divine about us. His 
mind focussed on the vital point, and he decided 
that some word proclaiming Christ’s ¢dentity of 
essence with the father must become the battle- 
cry of those who would fight Arianism. 

Aided and supported by this fervid youngster, 
who was then a deacon, old Alexander flung back 
Arianism to its author as a pernicious heresy. 
War was declared; and the church split like a 
mirror. 

It was then that Constantine the Emperor 
sent a charming letter to Alexander and Arius, 
a letter exactly typical of the state’s attitude, 
which so often seeks expediency rather than 
right. He exhorted them to peace and toleration, 


THE TALE OF A PHRASE 151 


and blamed them for having presumed to discuss 
so high a theme. 

But this was only like a pint of water thrown 
into a house on fire; and Constantine, the man 
who had made the Empire officially Christian, 
decided on a new thing. There should be a great 
council of all the bishops of the world. Away 
went his messengers, over Europe, Africa, and 
Asia Minor, and Britain, summoning the spiritual 
rulers of Christendom to the Emperor’s palace at 
Nicea, till (as one ancient chronicler says), “the 
highways were covered with bishops, galloping.” 

To this day, on the shores of the Ascanian 
Lake, there are a few broken pillars, which mark 
the palace of Constantine at Nicea; and to its 
great hall, in the year 325, came the bishops of 
the world. It was a fine scene. The seats of the 
bishops were all along the sides of the apartment, 
and a golden chair was placed for the Emperor. 
There was old Bishop Potammon who had lost 
an eye in Maximin’s persecution: there was Paul 
from the Euphrates, whose hands had been para- 
lysed with a red-hot iron; and there were many 
other scarred, old confessors, together with some 
of the younger blood, who had only seen the 
winter of persecution made glorious by the sum- 
mer sun of Constantine. But, most arresting of 
all, was the youth of puny stature, with the face 


152 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


of animated beauty, Alexander’s young deacon, 
Athanasius. 

A signal announced the coming of the Em- 
peror. He entered, and all the bishops rose and 
gazed with a thrill at the entrance of the Au- 
gustus into a Christian synod. The tall, com- 
manding figure, the purple robe, and the diadem 
(so we are told) were less impressive than the 
downcast look, the blush of diffidence, and the 
standing position which he maintained, till his 
fathers in God motioned him to be seated. 

Then the momentous debate began. I will not 
trouble you with its details. It is enough to say 
that the storm threw up one great word round 
which thereafter the controversy beat. That 
word was Homo-ousion. “Homo” is the Greek 
for “same,’ and “‘ouston’? for “essence’’; so the 
word means ‘“‘of the same essence,” or, aS we are 
familiar with it, “Of one substance.” Young 
Athanasius saw that it was the only word that 
could shut out Arianism for ever. Arius would 
probably have accepted the word, ‘‘Homoi- 
ousion,” “of like substance,” but the bishops, 
largely inspired by the imperious deacon, stood 
out for, “Of one substance.” Homo-ousion, or 
Homot-ouston¢ There’s only a difference of one 
Greek letter, and that the smallest letter in the 
alphabet ‘“1’’—which gave Gibbon the oppor- 
tunity to make his cheap jest that “the universal 


THE TALE OF A PHRASE 153 


church fought for a diphthong.” But Athanasius 
saw deeper than that. He saw that with that 
gota Christ stood or fell. Christ resided in 
an “i.” If Homo-ousion “of one substance” 
were beaten by ‘“Homoi-ousion “of like sub- 
stance,’ then Christianity in a few years would 
be nothing more than a legend. Finally the 
Great Council of Nicea inserted into the creed 
Homo-ousion. Day after day we say it: “God 
of God, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not 


made, Being of one substance with the Father. 


II 


But Arius and Arianism were not defeated. 
They proceeded now by secret diplomacy and 
backstairs intrigue to overthrow their conquerors ; 
and, most of all, they beat up towards the man 
they most feared, Athanasius, now Bishop of 
Alexandria, in succession to his old patron, Alex- 
ander, who had died with the ominous words: 
“Athanasius, thou shalt not escape.” 

His enemies manufactured a case against him, 
accusing him of murdering a man called Arsenius; 
but Athanasius contrived to produce Arsenius in 
court, alive and well, which rather vexed the 
prosecution. Then Athanasius left them in 
scorn, and, after his direct fashion, took a boat 
straight to Constantinople to lay his innocence 


154 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


before Constantine. We read that he stopped the 
Emperor in the middle of the road, as he was 
riding into the capital. The Emperor was 
startled. Who was this small man that dared to 
stand in his path? When told it was Athanasius, 
poor Constantine, who only wanted peace at any 
price, looked at him as much as to say, “Art 
thou he that troubleth Israel?” and tried to pass 
by him in silence. But Athanasius was not such 
a one. That was always the difficulty—you 
couldn’t brush past Athanasius. And the Em- 
peror consented to accord him a trial. But, per- 
haps thinking that, whether guilty or innocent, 
such a firebrand were best out of the way, he 
condemned him to exile. 

By such methods Arius and the Arians began 
to carry all before them, and at last the arch- 
heretic succeeded in convincing the Emperor of 
his orthodoxy, and Constantine ordered another 
Alexander, the venerable Bishop of Constanti- 
nople, to receive him into communion in his 
church on the Golden Horn. But Alexander, old 
veteran, declared that he was a guardian of the 
sacred faith proclaimed by the Great Council of 
Nicea, the Homo-ouston, and that he would not 
admit the inventor of heresy through his doors. 
The jubilant friends of Arius declared that they 
would bring him by force in the morning; and 


THE TALE OF A PHRASE 155 


sadly the old prelate turned away. “He bade 
farewell,” says an old writer, “to argument, and 
took refuge in God.’ He advanced to his 
chancel, and flung himself down on its pavement 
with outstretched hands, and prayed: 

“Tf Arius be brought to Communion to-morrow, 
let thy servant depart. But, if thou wilt spare 
thy church, and I know that thou wilt, take away 
Arius.” 

Such was the prayer of Alexander that Satur- 
day afternoon; and the same evening, when 
Arius, flushed with triumph, was walking and 
conversing with his friends, he suddenly stopped 
short, withdrew from his companions, and 
dropped dead. 

That, we are assured, is pure history. 


III 


I wish I had time to tell you how Athanasius, 
because of his unflinching loyalty to the Homo- 
ouston, suffered exile after exile, always return- 
ing in triumph, while the whole of Alexandria 
streamed out like another Nile (I am quoting a 
picturesque chronicler) to meet him. 

One picture let me give you. Arianism has 
covered the world like a sea, save for one rock, 
that aging little figure, Athanasius, Bishop of 


156 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Alexandria, supported by all his faithful Alex- 
andrians. Constantius, a successor of Constan- 
tine, has determined to drive Athanasius from 
his stronghold. One night Athanasius is keep- 
ing a solemn vigil in the church of St. Thomas, 
and his faithful are with him. About midnight 
there is a sudden uproar without, and five thou- 
sand soldiers attack the church. At once Atha- 
nasius ascended his throne, and ordered the dea- 
con to read the psalm, ‘“‘For His mercy endureth 
for ever.” There is no doubt that he put him- 
self in the place of honour that the soldiers might 
recognise him and spare his flock. The doors 
burst open, the soldiers rushed in, the people 
fled, calling on their beloved Athanasius to fly 
with them. “I will not stir,’ he said, “till you 
are all away safely’; and he was finally dragged 
away by his monks. It is always believed that 
the soldiers elected to be strangely blind. 

So Athanasius fled to the African desert, taking 
with him his flag, the Homo-ousion, “‘of one sub- 
stance.’ He was quite unbeaten, and from his 
Jair in the desert he directed such of the church 
as was still true by letters of instruction and en- 
couragement. He was known as “The Invisible 
Patriarch”; and for six years he lay hid, but 
powerful. Thus was given to language the fa- 
mous phrase: Athanasius contra mundum, ‘‘Atha- 
nasius against the world.” 


THE TALE OF A PHRASE 157 


IV 


It is an old story to say that the darkest hour 
precedes the dawn: but that’s just what happened 
here. Constantius died and was succeeded by 
Julian the Apostate, who sought to re-establish 
Heathenism. At once the Church began to forget 
her differences and to close her ranks to meet the 
threat. Arianism, which had only flourished with 
the support of the mighty, began gradually to 
yield ground to the stronger, more life-giving 
faith of Athanasius. In times of trouble men 
want Christ to be true God. Athanasius returned 
to Alexandria for the triumph of his life. The 
whole city, men, women and children, flocked out 
to greet him, singing hymns and psalms and Te 
Deum. 

At the great Council of Constantinople, some 
years later, after the death of Julian and the 
failure of his gallant attempt to restore the old 
gods, the faith of Nicea, the Homo-ousion, was 
finally ratified. 


Vv 


“Of one substance with the Father.’ Cold, 
hard words; dry bones; not the words to stir a 
man’s soul. 

Well, I don’t know. Once a man stood in a 


158 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


church, and looked up at a faded and torn piece 
of cloth on a dry and bleached old pole. And 


he uttered these words: 


“A moth-eaten rag, and a worm-eaten pole— 
It doesn’t look likely to stir a man’s soul. 
But it’s the deeds that were done ’neath that 
moth-eaten rag, 
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a 


flag.” 


XIX: THE BELIEVERS 


I 


CCASIONALLY, when it falls to my lot 

to conduct a children’s service, and the 

pews about me are crowded with children, I 
stand in the pulpit, and, after looking down upon 
them, surrender to an emotion that is both rev- 
erence and humility. I realise that I have before 
me and around me a congregation of believers. 
There are no doubters anywhere. There are no 
critics of the Gospel anywhere, not even friendly 
critics, still less hostile critics. Nowhere is there 
a soul, as there may be in a congregation of 
adults, who longs to believe and can’t quite. 
They believe. Nowhere is there a soul seeking 
a light that it has lost. ‘They are in the light. 
I’m not saying that they’re very good—perhaps 
they are fractious and mischievous, and the Lord 
in his Heaven only knows what may be happen- 
ing to the hassocks—I’m not measuring them by 
a standard of morality, but by a standard of 
faith; and I know that they are the pure be- 
lievers. And, looking down upon them in front 


of me and all around me, I know that I am 
159 


160 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


standing in the Kingdom of God. And I have a 
moment of fear lest I be something of a stranger 
among them. I wonder if I am still free of their 
city. 


II 


You too, dear people, when you gather in 
church form a congregation of believers, but in 
a different and far more mixed way. A great 
many of you, I doubt not, have fought hard for 
your faith, and won it, and will never lose it 
now: but many of you, I dare say, while holding 
fast to your faith, knowing that you would be 
lost without it, are yet intellectually confused; 
some of you have passing attacks of doubt; some 
of you know that there are parts of your creed, 
which you prefer to accept than to think about, 
because they worry you. The difference between 
us aS a congregation and a congregation of chil- 
dren is that we are sophisticated, but they are 
unsophisticated; we, with our proud intellects, 
are often wise above what is written, but the 
children do not worry to be so wise; we are con- 
scious of sins that shoulder out our traffic with 
Christ, but the children, whom the more I study 
the more I see to be strangely primitive and 
unmoral, do not allow their sins to interfere with 
their faith in Jesus; we have to fight our way 


THE BELIEVERS 161 


back to the faith of our childhood, but they are 
still there; our creed is always, “Lord, I believe, 
help thou mine unbelief,’’ but the faith of the 
children is, “Lord, I believe.” 


III 


I said just now that I believed children to be 
strangely primitive and unmoral, divorcing mo- 
rality from religion, and not allowing their sins 
to interfere with their faith in Christ. And is 
it not so? Why is Punch’s picture so perfectly 
true?—the picture of a little boy getting into 
bed, and his mother rebuking him: “What, 
Tommy! aren’t you going to say your prayers 
first?’ and Thomas replying: ‘“‘No, mother, I 
think [m going to take a sporting chance to- 
night.” That was a pure act of wilful sin, a 
capricious rebellion, a deliberate apostasy, and 
yet it was based on a perfect faith in an omnipo- 
tent God and his claim on our worship. For, if 
there were no God and no obligation, there was 
nothing sporting about it. 

Or the little girl watching a fly on the window- 
pane, and finally addressing it: ‘“Ickle fly, does 
*oo want to see Dod? ’Oo does? Then—” and 
squish! she has immolated it on the glass with 
her thumb-nail. How exactly right is the mix- 
ture of childish faith and childish cruelty! 


162 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


I select these stories, because I want to concede 
the point that our faith may be more credit to us 
than the faith of children since we have achieved 
it with thought and worry and prayer, while the 
faith of children is an effortless thing: but that 
is not to say that ours is the same measure of 
faith. It isn’t. We never do recapture that first, 
fine, careless faith of childhood. And it is faith, 
not nobility and unselfishness though they always 
go with a grown-up’s real faith, that brings us 
near to God. According to our faith is it unto 
us. It is perhaps difficult to see why a child, 
with its low ethical standard and its weak, vacil- 
lating will, is, in the short space of its childhood, 
nearer God than a saintly adult who has tri- 
umphed over his sin and schooled himself for 
Christ’s sake. Surely, you say, this latter is a 
stronger servant of God. Or, since it is faith, 
and not morality, that brings men near to God, 
surely this man whose faith has issued gloriously 
from the fires of suffering is a greater citizen of 
the Kingdom of God. Which is really the 
greater? Jesus took a little child and set him 
in the midst of them. 


IV 


So, if I had to appeal for the Church’s support 
for her Sunday schools and for others of her min- 


THE BELIEVERS 163 


istrations to children, the note that I would 
strike would not be the duty of the strong to sup- 
port the weak—of the great to support the small, 
but, rather, the duty of the weak to sustain the 
strong, and of us smaller folk to support our 
great ones in the Kingdom of Heaven. In a 
word, let us preserve our saints. Let us be proud 
of these our citizens who occupy the high places; 
because in them we are nearest God. ‘They are 
our most forward point. 

The Church that ceases to care for its children 
is doomed. And voz because of the obvious reason 
that they are the coming generation, who shall 
build when we have laid down our tools, though 
that is true, and worth considering: and not be- 
cause it has been well said that, if the children 
are given to the church till they are twelve years 
old, it hardly matters what happens to them aft- 
erwards, though there is a great deal of truth in 
that. I used to be doubtful about it, and won- 
dered if we didn’t overdo the church-going of the 
choir-boy, for example, so that he would never 
want to set foot in a church again. But my ex- 
perience in the war shook my doubts. I know 
that whenever I set up my little altar in a French 
or Belgian wood, or when I gathered together a 
little evensong on the seaward slope of some 
Gallipoli ravine, in the violet light of sundown, 
there were few enough who cared to come, God 


164 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


knows, but the ex-choir boy was generally there. 
The service was in his blood. And I learned what 
was meant by the truth of the saying: “Once a 
choir-boy, always a churchman.” As sure as he 
was within hearing or seeing distance, he came 
down the ravine side, polishing up the buttons of 
his tunic, at the first sound of ““O God, our help 
in ages past,’ or “My soul doth magnify the 
Lord”; and, I verily believe, at the first sight of 
a white surplice. These things echoed from the 
playgrounds of the Kingdom, where he trifled as 
a child. 

But it is not for that reason that I say the 
church is doomed that ceases to care for its chil- 
dren. It is doomed simply because in its children 
it is nearest God. It must preserve its saints. 


Vv 


And we know it. Not the least beautiful thing 
in erring and sinful men is their determination 
to protect the faith of their children. English- 
men who are shy of revealing their deeper 
thoughts would probably say they do it because 
they want to give their children a fair chance. It 
isn’t that: it is just because the idea that—what- 
ever themselves may be—their children should be 
out of touch with God is revolting to them. Do 





THE BELIEVERS 165 


you know any father who, though sceptical and 
critical himself, would like to hear little Georgie 
maintaining atheistic opinions over the breakfast 
table? Of course not. They have an instinct 
that the children, at all costs, must be close to 
God. They are probably quite hurt if their wife 
is not, too; but, at all costs, the child. One mem- 
ber of the family, at least, must be in touch with 
Heaven. And what is right for the family is 
right for the church. We are proud of our great 
believers, and at all costs we'll protect their 
faith. I wonder what may be the value to the 
church of the prayers of the children, according 
to whose faith things are given unto them. 


vI 


We must do our part by them and by their 
schools. 

I remember one Sunday morning when [I re- 
proached them severely. I was saying: “You 
just turn up, and expect everything to be pro- 
vided for ycu—a building, books, teachers, and 
above all, a treat. You take it too much for 
granted. You just turn up.” 

And I went out into the street, wishing I 
hadn’t said it. It was in every way the wrong 
thing. That they take everything for granted; 


166 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


that they just turn up; that they expect some one 
will see to it that the roof remains intact over 
their heads; and the fire is lighted on cold winter 
mornings; and the gas is lit on dark winter after- 
noons; and, above all, that there is a treat in 
summer days, with swings and round-abouts and 
ice-cream cornets and abundant opportunities for 
making an infernal noise in green and leafy 
places; that they take all this for granted, and 
just turn up expecting it—what is it but the 
faith of which I have been speaking? Their 
faith in us is like their faith in God. 

And we are agreed that we mustn’t injure their 
gift for faith by failing it. 

It is sometimes the fashion to launch an emo- 
tional appeal for children’s hospitals by picturing 
the sick children with outstretched hands, asking 
the help of the passers-by. Don’t think of them 
like that. For they never stretch out their hands 
and ask people to feed and minister to them. 
They just sit up and expect it. They take it for 
granted, and know that some one will provide for 
them: as sure as it is four o'clock they sit up in 
their red night-gowns in their beds, and assume 
that somebody will bring them tea. 

And somebody does: and you and I pay our 
share. Jesus saw it. He was often very severe 
indeed on all that is wrong in men—very out- 
spoken and unpleasant—when he really “let go” 


THE BELIEVERS 167 


on their cant and their humbug and their cruel- 
ties; but he paid us one great compliment; which 
was deserved then as it is deserved now. He 
said: “You men, although you are evil, know 
how to give good gifts to your children.” 


XX: THE SEVEN SEALS 


I 


T. JOHN the Divine, languishing on Pat- 

mos, saw a door opened in Heaven, and 
heard a voice summoning him: “Come up hither, 
and I will show thee things that must be here- 
after.’ And immediately, as in a dream, he 
seemed to be translated through that door, and 
to stand in a brilliant audience-chamber. He 
dares not name the One Whom he saw sitting 
on the throne, but it was God, completely encir- 
cled by a rainbow, the symbol of His faithful- 
ness. In front of the throne there were four 
worshipping beasts; one like a lion, another like 
an ox, a third like a man, and a fourth like an 
eagle, flying. The worship of these beasts prob- 
ably represents the unconscious worship of na- 
ture: as thus:—the lion, tearing through the un- 
dergrowth, rejoices in his strength, and thereby 
unwittingly worships God; the patient-eyed ox, 
dragging the plough, ministers to man, and God 
accepts his slow, quiet service; man goes to his 
day’s work in the morning, and returns at even- 


time, and sings and sleeps and is happy; and, in 
168 


THE SEVEN SEALS 169 


so doing, is obedient and pleasing to his Maker; 
the eagle soars into the upper air, and his very 
jote-de-vivre 1s Savoury praise with God. So the 
four beasts are portrayed as singing: “Holy, 
Holy, Holy, Lord God the Ruler, Who wast, 
and art, and evermore shalt be.’ 

Then, round about the throne, are twenty-four 
elders, who depict the conscious, organised wor- 
ship of Churchmanship—the very number sug- 
gests the twelve patriarchs of the old Church, and 
the twelve princes of the new. They sing a new 
song, grander and more articulate than the sim- 
ple, instinctive worship of nature that blindly 
acknowledged the existence of God in the words: 
“Holy,, Holy, Holy, Lord God the Ruler.” 
There is thought and reason and a sense of causa- 
tion in the song of the twenty-four elders: 
“Thou art worthy, O our Lord and our God, to 
receive the glory and the honour and the power, 
for thou didst create all things and because of 
thy will they aré and were created.” 


It 


And John saw that on the right hand of Him 
that sat on the throne there was a book, closely 
sealed with seven seals. And a strong angel 
cried out: ‘““Who is worthy to open the book and 
to break its seals?” And no one in Heaven or 


170 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


earth or under the earth was able to open the 
book or look into it. 

Now, in order to understand the tremendous 
truth that is coming, we must be told in advance 
what the book contains. It speaks of militarism, 
war, famine, high prices, even food control, I 
think, and death, the Shades on the other side 
of Death, a little goodness, the endurance of a 
few faithful people, and the end of hunger and 
thirst and tears—in a sentence, it is the book of 
our world, the long, closely written riddle; and 
who on earth can read it? John, when he found 
nobody could read it, wept, as ten thousand other 
philosophers have done, agnostics especially, when 
they have regretfully come to the conclusion that, 
apart from revealed religion, there is no reading 
the riddles of life and pain and the destiny of 
man. But one of the elders, a voice from the 
church, turned to John and said (and this is the 
tremendous truth): “Do not weep. The Lion of 
the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has tri- 
umphed, and will open the book and break its 
seven seals.” Christ alone holds the key to 
man’s world. 

Then—mark the position—midway between 
the throne and the four living creatures (midway 
between God and Nature, that is), among the 
elders (with the holders of revealed religion, you 
see), John saw a lamb. Note the surprise. He 


THE SEVEN SEALS 171 


was told a lion, and he saw a lamb: the Lion 
of the Old and fiercer Dispensation is revealed 
as the Lamb of the New. This central figure, the 
only figure in the world that could do it, walked 
up to the throne, and deliberately took the book 
out of the right hand of Him that sat there. 
Immediately the four beasts, and the twenty-four 
elders burst out into a new song: 

“Tt is fitting (I am translating the old words 
into newer terms) that Thou shouldst be the one 
to take the book, 

And break its seals, 

Because Thou hast been offered in sacrifice.” 

All nature, you see, and the Church, in this 
vision, acknowledge the right of Christ to solve 
the mystery of the world. Heaven joins in. 
The voices of countless angels, on every side the 
throne, ten thousand times ten thousand, sing 
with a great voice: 

“Tt is fitting that the Lamb, which has been 
offered in sacrifice, should receive all power and 
riches and wisdom, and might and honour and 
glory and blessing.”’ 


II 


So, with a great chorus of song, we are brought 
to the moment of the breaking of the seven 
seals. | 


172 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


Just as often in a fantasy on the stage, if an 
actor is represented as reading a book, the con- 
tents of the book are shown in moving tableaux 
behind him, so here, as seal after seal is broken, 
a series of pictures breaks on the audience, re- 
vealing what is to be read therein. 

The Lamb broke the first seal, and a voice 
cried, “Come!” (not “Come and see!’ which 
would appear to be addressed to the audience, 
but ‘Come!”, invoking an apparition). And 
there came a white horse carrying a rider with a 
bow; and to him was given a victor’s wreath, 
and he went out conquering, and to conquer. 
The fathers always interpreted this figure as 
Christ, but I think they were wrong, or else there 
is no logical and convincing sequence in the series 
of pictures. It is not a good figure, it is an evil 
figure. It is Militarism, and his horse is white, 
because the blood is not yet shed. 

The Lamb broke the second seal, and a voice 
cried: “Come!” And there came a red horse, and 
power was given to its rider to take peace from 
the earth, and to cause men to kill one another, 
and a great sword was given him. Clearly the 
red horse is the consequence of militarism, blood- 
letting War. 

The Lamb broke the third seal, and a voice 
cried: “Come!”’ And there came a black horse, 
its rider carrying a trader’s scale in his hand, and 


THE SEVEN SEALS p73 


a voice called: “A quart of wheat for a shilling, 
and three quarts of barley for a shilling, but do 
not injure the oil and wine.” The black horse 
is the consequence of militarism and _ war, 
famine, with high prices. Rendered into modern 
terms that high prices cry might be given as: “A 
shilling for a twopenny loaf, and milk at two 
shillings a quart. Economise petrol, and save 
coal.” 

The Lamb broke the fourth seal, and a voice 
cried: “Come!” And there came a pale horse, 
and its rider’s name was Death, the consequence 
of militarism and war and famine; and there 
rode a shadow hard behind him. 

Such are the things revealed by the breaking 
of the first four seals; and who can deny that 
they are the recurring story of this our world? 
The book is sad and heavy reading so far. But 
stay— 

The Lamb broke the fifth seal, and lo! an altar, 
the only solution, the altar of Christ, and, at its 
foot, the souls of those whose lives had been sac- 
rificed, because of the word of God and the tes- 
timony they had given. No sooner is the seal 
broken than they recognise their master and cry: 
“How long, O Master, Holy and True? How 
long? How long?’ And gently there is given 
to each of them a white robe, and they are bidden 
to wait patiently for a short time longer, till the 


174 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


full number of their fellow-servants shall be 
complete. 

Then the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there 
was a great earthquake; and the stars fell in 
showers from the sky, as when the fruit falls 
from the trees in a gale of wind; and the sky 
rolled itself up like a scroll; and the kings of 
the earth and the great men, and the military 
chiefs, and the wealthy and powerful,—all, that 
is, who had sought only their own glory at the 
expense of the suffering of their fellow-men,— 
hid themselves, as the things that were transitory 
passed away, along with the mountains and the 
islands and the sea. 

But the true souls, who had been given white 
robes at the altar’s foot, and all the others who 
had been gathered to them, were sealed as the 
servants of God: not only the one hundred and 
forty-four thousand, as we are wont to think, but 
a great multitude which no man could number, 
out of all nations and tribes and peoples and 
tongues; and they stood before the throne in their 
white robes and cried: 


“The Salvation that is ours we owe unto our 
God and to the Lamb.” 

And all the angels endorsed this ascription: 

“Even so (not Amen), even so,” they cried, 

“The blessing and the glory, 


THE SEVEN SEALS 175 


And the wisdom and the thanks, 

And the honour and the power and the might, 
Are to be ascribed unto our Ged, 

Even so, even so.” 


Then one of the elders, addressing St. John, 
said: ““Now, do you see? Do you understand it 
all? The misery, and the warfare, and the 
famine and the death, that sin has brought into 
the world, and the only sanctuary, the foot of the 
altar, among those who recognise Christ as their 
master, and distinguish between the things that 
are temporal and the things that are eternal. Do 
you understand it all? ‘Tell me, who are these 
clothed in white robes, and whence came they?” 

And John bowed his head, as one does who 
has learned his lesson, and murmured: 

“Sir, thou knowest.”’ 

To which the elder, summing up the whole 
matter, answered: 

“These are they which have come through the 
tribulation, and have kept their robes white, 
washing them in the blood of the Lamb. There- 
fore are they before the throne of God, and serve 
Him day and night in His temple. They shall 
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither 
shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For 
the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, 
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living 


176 THE SHOUT OF THE KING 


fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away 


all tears from their eyes.” 
Then the Lamb broke the seventh seal; and 
there was silence in Heaven for about half an 


hour—a silence as of work completed. 


THE END. 





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